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July 05, 2017 at 10:28 AM
A divided Federal Reserve policy committee couldn’t reach agreement in June on the timing of when to begin shrinking its massive balance sheet, according to minutes of the meeting.
“Several preferred to announce a start to the process within a couple of months,” the minutes of the June 13-14 meeting released on Wednesday in Washington showed. “Some others emphasized that deferring the decision until later in the year would permit additional time to assess the outlook for economic activity and inflation.”
U.S. central bankers in June raised the benchmark lending rate for a second time this year to a range of 1 percent to 1.25 percent, while describing monetary policy as “accommodative” in their statement. They reiterated their support for continued gradual rate increases, according to the minutes.
Fed officials updated their balance-sheet policy in the gathering, laying out a path of gradual reductions with caps. The central bank wants to start winding down the $4.5 trillion bond portfolio without roiling longer-term interest rates, while gradually raising the policy rate. The minutes indicated that the committee wants to begin the balance-sheet process this year.
The Fed said in June it would runoff maturing principal payments on Treasuries initially at $6 billion per month, increasing by $6 billion every three months over 12 months, until it reaches $30 billion.
For agency and mortgage-backed securities debt, the cap starts at $4 billion, and rises by $4 billion every three months until it hits a $20 billion a month.
Key Metrics
The minutes showed Fed officials split on other key metrics for monetary policy.
The minutes said “several participants endorsed a policy approach” where the labor market would undershoot their estimate of full employment “for a sustained period.” Meanwhile, several other participants “expressed concern that a substantial and sustained unemployment undershooting might make the economy more likely to experience financial instability or could lead to a sharp rise in inflation.”
