Goldman Sachs: FOMC May Provide A QE Timeline In December

Goldman saw this week's meeting as uneventful, in line with its expectations.

• It expects the FOMC "to provide a timeline for asset purchases at an upcoming meeting, possibly the December meeting. The FOMC has not indicated that it will necessarily extend the average maturity of its purchases when it introduces a timeline, but this would be more likely if the Committee wanted to provide more accommodation in response to worse economic conditions this winter."
• Goldman is one of the only analysts to mention the change in the Fed's communications that Powell announced in his presser opening statement, which "likely concludes the final and previously unaddressed section of the framework review related to communication practices."
• Re the change to the SEP which includes two new graphs which Powell said would "show how the balance of participants' assessments of uncertainty and risks have evolved over time", Goldman infers this to mean "the new graphs will show a time series of the net number of participants indicating elevated vs. low uncertainty and risks tilted to the upside vs. to the downside for GDP, the unemployment rate, and inflation."