A joint meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee and the Board of Governors was held in the offices of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, November 7, 2018, at 1:00 p.m. and continued on Thursday, November 8, 2018, at 9:00 a.m. Committee participants resumed their discussion of potential long-run frameworks for monetary policy implementation, a topic last discussed at the November 2016 FOMC meeting. The staff provided briefings that described changes in recent years in banks' uses of reserves, outlined tradeoffs associated with potential choices of operating ... (full story)

Federal Reserve officials, meeting earlier this month, saw another increase in the benchmark lending rate as likely warranted “fairly soon” even while they set the stage for more flexibility in their series of gradual hikes. “Almost all participants expressed the view that another increase in the target range for the federal funds rate was likely to be warranted fairly soon,’’ assuming the economy performs in line or stronger than their expectations, the central bank said in the minutes of its Nov. 7-8 session released in Washington Thursday. Officials also said that their post-meeting statement may need to be ... (full story)