• 
• See all for Zacks.com
• View Print Version

According to the  minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting held on April 24-25, 2012, " several members indicated that additional monetary policy accommodation could be necessary if the economic recovery lost momentum or the downside risks to the forecast became great enough ".

The officials agreed that the recent economic activity suggested that the economy has been expanding moderately and that the economic outlook had not changed much since their March meeting.

However most participants felt that their projections for GDP and unemployment were subject to a higher-than-normal level of uncertainty now, mainly due to the situation in Europe and the US fiscal environment.

Most participants expected that inflation would come down in near future from its recent high levels as the effect of energy prices waned and then it would stay close to the Fed's target rate of 2%.

Some members felt that recent upward movement in housing sales and starts was likely due to unusually warm winter weather and while the home prices were stabilizing, they had not started to rise. Most members expected that housing sector would recover slowly over time.

As the economic projections released after the April meeting showed, some members expected that the Fed would have to start raising rates earlier than they had expected in January.

About half of the participants expected that the rates would continue to be low at least through late 2014.

Members agreed that " as the appropriate stance of monetary policy depends importantly on the evolution of real activity and inflation over time, their assessments of the appropriate future path of the federal funds rate would change if economic conditions were to evolve in an unexpected manner ".

The minutes also indicated that all FOMC meetings will now last for two days, to allow additional time for discussion.

Related Stocks Articles

• 
  Video Game Sales Plunge in April - Analyst Blog
  5/24/2013 05:26 PM
• 
  Promising Data on ONCY's Reolysin - Analyst Blog
  5/24/2013 05:26 PM
• 
  How to Beat THIS Market - Weekend Wisdom
  5/24/2013 05:26 PM