WASHINGTON (AFP) — Federal Reserve policymakers opened a two-day meeting Tuesday in search of new tools to stimulate lending and revive an economy that has so far failed to respond to its zero-interest rate policy.
The two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) was being held six weeks after the central bank slashed its base lending rate to a range of zero to 0.25 percent and predicted "exceptionally low" rates to persist "for some time."
An announcement was due around 1915 GMT Wednesday.
The meeting opened after news that the Conference Board's consumer confidence index tumbled to 37.7 in January, the weakest on record.
A separate report by Standard & Poor's showed US home prices in top cities fell further in November, setting new records for declines.
The S&P Case-Shiller survey showed a record year-over-year decline of 18.2 percent in the 20 largest US metropolitan areas and a 19.1 percent fall in the top 10 markets.
Joining the Fed discussions was the newly appointed New York Fed chief, William Dudley, who had been executive vice president of the Markets Group at the New York Fed and is a former Goldman Sachs executive.
Dudley replaced Timothy Geithner, who was sworn in as treasury secretary Monday, and became the vice chairman and a permanent member of the FOMC.
Sacha Tihanyi, analyst at Scotia Capital, said the market expects the Fed to take further action to help fire up growth.
"With rates going nowhere for some time, the market's focus will be on whether the Fed will be looking to buy government (or corporate) securities in the near future," Tihanyi said.
"This is a highly controversial step and some see this as somewhat of a high-risk policy but on the other hand, it is one of the few avenues the Fed has left open to it with regard to further easing monetary conditions."
Despite the zero-rate policy, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and others have repeatedly said the central bank is not out of ammunition to fight the crisis.
Bernanke said earlier this month the Fed still has "powerful tools" at its disposal to counter a crisis that began with a US real estate meltdown and spread to the global financial sector.
The Fed "has already done a lot and will continue to do a lot" in addition to moving on interest rates, said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight.
The central bank has already offered exceptional aid to banks and other firms, and has been buying up mortgage-backed bonds and commercial paper to help unfreeze credit in those areas.
Analysts say this has helped somewhat but that credit markets remain under stress, with lenders and consumers skittish about taking on new risks.
"The big thing they could do is so-called quantitative easing, which would be directly going in and buying government bonds. The reason they would do that would be to lower mortgage rates," Behravesh said. "I will look for some kind of signal on this."
Morgan Stanley economist Ted Wieseman said he expected nothing dramatic from the Fed meeting.
"Obviously rates have already been cut about as low as they can go," he said.
"If long-end (Treasury bond) yields continue surging higher, the Fed will undoubtedly eventually step in and start buying, but such an announcement probably wouldn't come in an FOMC statement."
Adolfo Laurenti, senior economist at Mesirow Financial, said the Fed must walk a fine line in communicating its policy moves and its economic outlook.
Laurenti said he did not expect the Fed to acknowledge the use of quantitative easing, a move used by Japan that focused on the quantity of money in the financial system.
"I think part of the problem is that if you look back at what Japan did in the 1990s it did not work very well," Laurenti said.
"The Fed wants to mark a difference between what Japan did and what they want to accomplish."
Laurenti said the Fed will make a major effort to shore up confidence, helping the nation weather what appears to be a deep recession that may ease in the second half of 2009.
"I think they need to acknowledge the fact that the economy is weak and will continue to deteriorate until the second half and at the same time they need to manage expectations," he said.
"How to prepare expectations without sounding alarmist is a very tough balance. They will be parsing every single word, to make the point without contributing to the depressed climate."
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