October 28: Will Fed hibernate until spring? (Bankrate)
With the recent budget rumpus in Washington, the Federal Reserve's September decision to continue full-bore with asset purchases seems prescient. The government shutdown, coupled with ongoing economic uncertainty, means the central bank may keep purchasing bonds at the current rate of $85 billion per month until mid-2014.
This week's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee all but promises to be a sedate and uneventful affair, at least on the surface. "Chairman (Ben) Bernanke has repeatedly told us that any moves will be data dependent, and we haven't had much data recently, and some of the data we'll be getting is probably not going to be as trustworthy as it usually is," says Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist for Jefferies & Co...