“Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke indicated that the central bank is weighing the potential costs from its $85 billion in monthly purchases of bonds while saying the unorthodox easing bolsters the economy.
“So far, we think we are getting some effect, it is kind of early,” Bernanke said yesterday at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy in Ann Arbor. “We are going to continue to assess how effective” the program is “because it is possible that as you move through time and the situation changes that the impact of these tools could vary.”
The Federal Open Market Committee last month decided to add $45 billion in monthly purchases of U.S. Treasury notes to its program buying $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities each month. The committee set no limit on the size or duration of the bond purchases.
Minutes from the Dec. 11-12 meeting showed that even as they were preparing to launch new Treasury purchases, “several” FOMC members said it would “probably be appropriate to slow or stop buying well before the end of 2013.” A “few” others were willing to let the program run to the end of the year, while “a few others” didn’t give a time frame.
“What I think the market was hoping for was that he would come down on one side or the other,” said Drew Matus, senior U.S. economist at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford,Connecticut, referring to Bernanke. “He decided to say we are not sure, and that just ratifies the minutes.”
