Tag Archives: Federal Reserve

A new survey released by the Wall Street Journal finds most don't expect the Federal Reserve to begin raising interest rates until mid-summer 2015 or later. In a poll of economists nationwide, the Journal found only about a third believe the Fed will start hiking up rates before June next year. That number is down from 45 percent of economists in the publication's August survey.

Financial regulators said Tuesday they hope to finish their work on a rule aimed at tightening mortgage standards and reducing risk by the end of this year. In a Senate Banking Committee hearing, FDIC chair Martin Gruenberg said his agency and others are "in the end game" of their work on a rule that would require mortgage-backed securities (MBS) issuers to hold a stake on packaged loans that don't meet certain exemption requirements.

A new survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco finds investors aren't buying in to the central bank's projections of interest rate increases in the coming years. The San Francisco Fed's report comes one week before the FOMC announces its next economic policy move—and before Fed Chair Janet Yellen is scheduled to give her own hints at the central bank's timeline.

Federal regulators announced last week they have finalized a rule with regards to the "liquidity coverage ratio" (LCR) of large financial institutions. The final rule is nearly identical to the rule that was originally proposed with a few changes based on public comments.

The last two months saw continued economic growth at a modest to moderate pace, according to reports in the Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book, released Wednesday. Since the previous Beige Book report, "barely half" of the reporting districts said they have experienced stability or growth in home sales and new construction, which each grew modestly.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen called for moderation in monetary policy in a major speech on Friday as the economy continued to show signs of a slow but steady recovery. Speaking from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the central banker hailed a falling unemployment rate and improving payroll figures but held back from calling it significant enough process to notch up still-low interest rates.

In a rare show of bipartisanship, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and David Vitter (R-Louisiana) joined four other senators and nine House members in a letter that warned against a weak proposed rule that signers said would fail to place "meaningful restrictions" on its ability to bail out financial institutions.

Speaking at a conference in Sweden Monday morning, Stanley Fischer, vice chairman of the Fed and former governor of the Bank of Israel, admitted that the global recovery from the recession has been disappointing at best, noting that economic growth among the world's most advanced economies has underperformed compared to previous post-recessionary periods.

A slower than anticipated first half has killed off any enthusiasm economists had for housing at the start of 2014, a survey published by the Wall Street Journal finds. In the Journal's latest monthly survey, a panel of economic experts called for new housing starts to average a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.01 million this year, a 9 percent decline from their prediction at the beginning of the year.

As the U.S housing market climbs back to healthy, a third of it is less affordable now than it's been all century, according to RealtyTrac. The firm's latest housing affordability report, released Thursday, found that 34 percent of the 1,200 U.S. counties it surveyed are at their least affordable, on average, since 2000.