Monday, September 29, 2014

"Considerable Time" and Yellen

"Considerable time" is the buzzwords from Fed Chairman Yellen, but putting some distance from the last Fed Meeting announcements makes me more uneasy about what these words mean. It really tells investors nothing other than there is a slow recovery and there is no reason to tighten policy through raising rates. 

The discussion always has to come back to a review of rules versus discretion and which creates more uncertainty. The Fed wants to have management flexibility but in so doing that there will always be more uncertainty. If you have rules but break them in the future, there is a loss of creditability. If you have discretion that is unclear there is less loss of creditability. The Fed can argue that it provided what they thought was useful information.

It is unclear the current level of creditability with the Fed. Inflation expectations are stable and grounded around 2%, but it is not  clear whether this is because of or in spite of the Fed. Fed clarity is still in short supply.

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