Fed Minutes Confirm Bond Purchase Tapering in 2013, Ending in Mid-2014

The Federal Reserve has released the official minutes from the July 31 FOMC meeting. As many have expected, the minutes are showing that the Fed members are more or less ready to begin tapering the $85 billion in asset purchases and there was also a discussion about whether or not the FOMC should change the forward guidance about how long the Fed will keep interest rates so low.

While this signals a start of the tapering of the $85 billion in bond buying each month and signals a potential beginning of the end for Fed Funds at 0.00% to 0.25%, the reality is that this should have been expected. We also have an issue with the “official minutes” getting to influence the same stock and bond markets twice within three weeks rather than when it was released six weeks after the fact in the prior years.

24/7 Wall St. maintains that the FOMC Minutes in the manner they are released now should be banned. Here are the comments that should stand out as far as future interest rate and monetary policy:

First, almost all participants confirmed that they were broadly comfortable with the characterization of the contingent outlook for asset purchases that was presented in the June postmeeting press conference and in the July monetary policy testimony… if economic conditions improved broadly as expected, the Committee would moderate the pace of its securities purchases later this year. And if economic conditions continued to develop broadly as anticipated, the Committee would reduce the pace of purchases in measured steps and conclude the purchase program around the middle of 2014. Second, participants considered whether it would be desirable to include in the Committee’s policy statement additional information regarding the Committee’s contingent outlook for asset purchases. Finally, the potential for clarifying or strengthening the Committee’s forward guidance for the federal funds rate was discussed. In general, there was support for maintaining the current numerical thresholds in the forward guidance.

The long and short of the matter is that Ben Bernanke and the Fed heads all get to reiterate or alter their views in a carefully thought out period. Keep in mind that this has been being written for roughly three weeks and pertains to the July 31 meeting. We have seen more than twenty economic releases since this FOMC meeting, yet somehow the market gets tricked into thinking this is something new.

The S&P 500 dropped to down almost 7 points and the DJIA is down about 70 points. The 10-year Treasury yield is roughly 2.81%.