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Powell Says Fed Will Wrap Up Strategy Review in Near Future

Powell Says Fed Will Wrap Up Strategy Review in the Near Future

The Federal Reserve will wrap up its review of monetary-policy strategy, tools and communications in the near future, Chair Jerome Powell said.

“At this meeting, my colleagues and I resumed our discussions” about the review, which was temporarily delayed by the onset of the pandemic, Powell said Wednesday in opening remarks prepared for a press conference following a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.

“Our focus was on possible enhancements to our statement on longer-run goals and monetary-policy strategy,” Powell said. “While I do not have any details to share with you today, I am confident that we will continue to make progress and will wrap up our deliberations in the near future.”

Fed watchers expect the review -- which was first announced in November 2018 and has preoccupied central bankers for much of the last year and a half -- to conclude in September, and for Fed officials to issue stronger guidance about the path of interest rates by linking the timing of future rate increases to specific thresholds for unemployment and inflation.

“To a very large extent, the changes we’ll make to the statement of longer-run goals and monetary policy strategy are really codifying the way we’re already acting with our policies,” Powell said later while answering questions. “This is just a way of acknowledging that and putting them in a document. I can’t tell you what the exact timing of that will be.”

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