BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research A US Economics Report – Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Bernanke defends current policy stance
The Federal Reserve today made no changes to its policy stance and only modestly revised its economic and policy projections. In his remarks during the press conference, Chairman Bernanke emphasized the Fed’s commitment to see a sustained labor market recovery, while taking into account the potential costs of QE – which he labeled “manageable.” Bernanke gave little indication that the FOMC might scale back QE3 anytime soon. We continue to expect the Fed will maintain the current $85 bn per month purchase pace into next year, and will not start hiking interest rates until late 2015, at the earliest.
Read the full report here.