- Fed funds rate held at 0-0.25%, as expected
- Monthly bond purchases remain at $85 billion/month, as expected
- No change to forward guidance on interest rates
- Fed says data since Sept meeting generally suggests economy continued to expand at a moderate pace
- Repeats that downside risks to the outlook have diminished on net since last Fall
annatimone's Blog
Fed says it will await more evidence before QE taper
Highlights of the October 30, 2013 Federal Reserve’s FOMC statement:
Many US economic data points still unscheduled
The key inflation reports have also been rescheduled but a number of data points are still without a time. The main one is retail sales but factory orders, trade balance industrial production, housing starts and the CFTC positioning data still have no set time.
I’ll keep an eye out for any changes but for now, existing home sales are the only thing on the US calendar for Monday.
I’ll keep an eye out for any changes but for now, existing home sales are the only thing on the US calendar for Monday.
Will the Canadian Dollar Increase in Value?
The Canadian dollar increased in value as Canadian retail sales numbers were released for the month of May. In April, these numbers were worse than expected with a -0.4% decrease in retail sales. That said, prior to the release of today's retail sales numbers, it was believed that the retail figures would increase slightly to 0.4% over April's numbers. However, much to everyone's surprise, Canada's retail sales increased by 1.9% in May - the most rapid rate of growth since over two years ago in…