Fed’s Williams: May or June could be low point for economy

There is a lot of uncertainty about how the economy will evolve but there could be a significant rebound in the second half of 2020, New York Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.

Additional takeaways

“Central bank’s enormous actions to boost liquidity have helped market functioning.”

“Tourism industry may take a while to rebound but construction and manufacturing may come back sooner.”

“We need fiscal policy to provide income to households, along with liquidity efforts, to support businesses and economy.”

“Crisis is affecting both supply and demand but the demand effects could be larger.”

“Fed is in the early days of working on economic forecasts and thinking about range of scenarios that could happen.”

“Fed is using data from social media and data on driving patterns to develop economic forecasts.”

“Fed has a range of tools and yield curve control is a tool that could potentially complement forward guidance.”

“Fed wants to make sure businesses and households make it through without lasting damage.”

“Fed has not seen any signs of a shortage of demand for US Treasury securities.”

“May or June could be the low point for the economy but we’re still in a very difficult situation.”

Market reaction

These comments had no impact on the USD’s performance. As of writing, the US Dollar Index was virtually unchanged on the day at 99.00.