June 1st Weekly Economic Update
This week’s Weekly Economic Commentary is the third in a series looking back at the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) quantitative easing (QE) programs and evaluating how well they achieved their goals. Why grade the Fed now? We have just passed the six-month mark from the last purchase of QE3, which began in September 2012 and ended in October 2014. Also this time of year, colleges, universities, and high schools pass out report cards and hand out diplomas. In the week ahead (June 1 – 5, 2015), we’ll hear from all four major central banks that have enacted QE:
- The European Central Bank (ECB), which meets on Wednesday, June 3, 2015
- The Bank of England (BOE), which meets on Thursday, June 4, 2015
- The Bank of Japan (BOJ), as the governor of the BOJ delivers a key policy speech on Wednesday, June 3, 2015
- The Fed itself, with the release of its Beige Book — a qualitative assessment of economic, business an banking conditions in each of the 12 regional Fed districts — on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, ahead of the next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on June 16 – 17, 2015
Having already graded the Fed on financial stress and its dual mandate, we’ll grade the Fed’s QE program on how it impacted financial markets, one of the Fed’s key transmission mechanisms to achieve its dual mandate. This week we are looking at domestic stock and bond market performance, and will grade the Fed on the other asset classes in a future commentary.
For the full article: GRADING THE FED’S QE PROGRAM: WEEK 3