Officials to Consider Putting More Money Into Bond Market as Recovery Wavers
Jon Hilsenrath
The Wall Street Journal
8/3/2010
Federal Reserve officials will consider a modest but symbolically important change in the management of their massive securities portfolio when they meet next week to ponder an economy that seems to be losing momentum.
The issue: Whether to use cash the Fed receives when its mortgage-bond holdings mature to buy new mortgage or Treasury bonds, instead of allowing its portfolio to shrink gradually, as it is expected to do in the months ahead. Any change—only four months after the Fed ended its massive bond-buying program—would signal deepening concern about the economic outlook. If the Fed’s forecast deteriorates significantly, it could also be a precursor to bigger efforts to pump money into the economy.
Moving to stop the Fed’s portfolio from shrinking would prevent monetary policy from slightly tightening in the face of a weakening recovery.
The central bank’s $2.3 trillion portfolio has nearly tripled in size since 2007.
Buying new bonds with this stream of cash from maturing bonds—projected at about $200 billion by 2011—would show the public and markets that the Fed is seeking ways to support economic growth. It could also be a compromise that rival factions at the Fed support, as officials differ about whether and how to address a subpar recovery.
The article, with embedded video, continues at WSJ.
