Summary of the yawn-inducing minutes via Bloomberg:
- SEVERAL ON FOMC FAVORED CHANGE TO MID-2013 RATE VOW BEFORE LONG
- FOMC SAID GLOBAL FINANCIAL STRAINS POSE `SIGNIFICANT' RISK
- FED PLANS TO RELEASE OFFICIALS' FED FUNDS RATE FORECASTS (this is not news, and if the Fed is as accurate in "predicting" - note not setting - FF rates as it is in forecasting everything else, woe is us)
- FOMC MEMBERS SAW LONG-TERM INFLATION EXPECTATIONS AS STABLE
- FOMC MEMBERS SAW ECONOMY `EXPANDING AT A MODERATE RATE'
- FOMC MEMBERS SAID CONSUMER SPENDING `STRONGER THAN EXPECTED'
- MOST FOMC MEMBERS PREDICTED INFLATION WOULD `MODERATE'
- 'A NUMBER' OF FOMC MEMBERS SAW POSSIBLE NEED FOR MORE EASING
Here is an artist's rendering of what the official Fed Fund's rate projection will look like for the next 10 years:
0.0%; 0.0%; 0.0%; 0.0%; 0.0%; 0.0%; 0.0%; 0.0%; 0.0%; 0.0%
And this is how the Fed will present QE in advance just so Bernanke can hike stock markets purely on expectations and not on actual monetization:
At the conclusion of their discussion, participants decided to incorporate information about their projections of appropriate monetary policy into the SEP beginning in January. Specifically, the SEP will include information about participants’ projections of the appropriate level of the target federal funds rate in the fourth quarter of the current year and the next few calendar years, and over the longer run; the SEP also willreport participants’ current projections of the likely timing of the first increase in the target rate given their projections of future economic conditions. An accompanying narrative will describe the key factors underlying those assessments as well as qualitative information regarding participants’ expectations for the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. A number of participants suggested further enhancements to the SEP; the Chairman asked the subcommittee to explore such enhancements over coming months.
Overall, absolutely nothing new int his especially judging by the market reaction.
Full thing can be found here [4].