FOMC Policy Statement

The Federal Reserve's policy statement has been released. Here is the interesting stuff that carried over from June:

The Committee also decided to continue through the end of the year its program to extend the average maturity of its holdings of securities as announced in June, and it is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities. The Committee will closely monitor incoming information on economic and financial developments and will provide additional accommodation as needed to promote a stronger economic recovery and sustained improvement in labor market conditions in a context of price stability.

Read over this statement and compare it with the last statement. You will notice paragraphs two and three have remained unchanged.

From June: Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April suggests that the economy has been expanding moderately this year.

From August: Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in June suggests that economic activity decelerated somewhat over the first half of this year.

Overall, not a whole lot was done. They left the door open for more policy down the road. It will be interesting to see if the Fed does anything prior to the election. They have a big conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in the end of August. Last year they announced operation twist in September following this meeting. Here is a list of what can be done.