The Federal Reserve could slow the pace of its bond purchase program this year if the jobs market continues to improve, according to the minutes of the last FOMC meeting released Wednesday.
“Many participants… expressed the view that continued solid improvement in the outlook for the labor market could prompt the Committee to slow the pace of purchases beginning at some point over the next several meetings,” the minutes said.
The minutes of the March 19-20 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee — held before last week’s release of dismal jobs numbers for March — showed debate about the risks of the Fed’s aggressive $85 billion-a-month asset purchases, a third round of quantitative easing known as QE3.
“A few participants noted that they already viewed the costs as likely outweighing the benefits and so would like to bring the program to a close relatively relatively soon,” the minutes said.
“A few others” saw the risks accelerating with the size of the Fed’s balance sheet and projected the pace of purchases would likely need to be slowed “before long.”
Fed could slow QE if jobs market improves: minutes
