Recent Updates
- US: Consumer Sentiment (Jan-prelim), Mfg & Trade Inventories & Sales (Nov), IP & Capacity Utilization, Adv Retail Sales, Producer Prices (Dec)
- US: Industrial Production Detail (Dec)
- US: Producer Price Indexes by Commodity Detail (Dec)
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
Empire State Manufacturing Index Declines in January
The Empire State Manufacturing Index of General Business Conditions decreased to 3.5 in January...
U.S. Industrial Production Continues Recovery
Industrial production advanced 1.6% in December...
U.S. PPI Rose 0.3% in December
The Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.3% (0.8% y/y) in December...
U.S. Business Inventories Accumulate during November as Sales Weaken
Total business inventories increased 0.5% during November (-3.2% y/y)...
The EMU Trade Surplus Stabilizes
Both exports and imports have been regaining momentum...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller December 11, 2019
The Federal Reserve kept the target range for the Federal funds rate at 1.50% to 1.75% at today's FOMC meeting. The lack of action was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey.
Today's action was unanimous amongst FOMC voters.
Comments which accompanied today's action were little changed from earlier meetings, including that the labor market has stayed solid and that economic activity continues to rise at a moderate rate. The pace of consumer spending continues strong but business investment and exports remain weak. The Fed remarked again that international developments could play a role in determining future action.
Accompanying today's meeting were scattered revisions to economic estimates. The real GDP growth estimates were unchanged at 2.2% in 2019, 2.0% in 2020, 1.9% in 2021 and 1.8% in 2022. Core PCE price inflation should come in this year at 1.6% (revised from 1.8%), then 1.9%, 2.0% and 2.0% in the following three years, respectively. The civilian unemployment rate estimate of 3.6% this year was reduced from 3.7% and will be followed by 3.5% (revised from 3.7%) in 2020, 3.6% in 2021 (revised from 3.8%) then 3.7% in 2022 (revised from 3.9%).
The press release for today's meeting can be found here.
Current | Last | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Federal Funds Rate Target | 1.50%-1.75% | 1.50%-1.75% | 1.82% | 1.00% | 0.40% | 0.13 |