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Fed dials back the dovishness a notch – ABN AMRO

Bill Diviney, senior economist at ABN AMRO, notes that the FOMC kept the target range of the fed funds rate on hold yesterday, though in a technical move, it lowered the IOER by 5bp.

Key Quotes

“The statement upgraded the language on recent economic activity, which it said ‘rose at a solid rate’ (previously ‘had slowed’), while acknowledging the slowdown in consumption and investment in Q1.”

“In the press conference, Chair Powell also sounded less concerned about global risk factors such as the slowdown in China and Europe, the risk of a disorderly Brexit, and China-US trade tensions.”

“Our base case continues to be the Fed keeping rates on hold through our forecast horizon to end-2020.”

“The effective fed funds rate has drifted close to the top end of the target range of 2.25-2.50% in recent weeks, and this prompted the third technical adjustment to the IOER, which was reduced by 5bp to 2.35%. As expected, Chair Powell stressed that this had no bearing on the stance of monetary policy, and was purely to better anchor the fed funds rate within the target range.”

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