MNI BRIEF: Bowman Favors Scrapping Fed's SEP Forecasts

Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said Tuesday she would prefer that the Federal Reserve ditch its quarterly Summary of Economic Projections and instead have officials communicate individually.

"On communications, I’m not a fan of the SEP. So I would prefer that we got rid of it altogether frankly, and that if individuals wanted to speak about their views, they could do that in the intermeeting period. There is no lack of speakers during each intermediate period," she said in Q&A at a conference at the Bank of Japan, according to a transcript. (See: MNI: Fed Messaging Swings Boost Policy Volatility -Ex-Officials)

Bowman also emphasized she'd like to see the Fed's balance sheet be as small as possible. "I think at this point the FOMC has voted to agree on an ample reserves policy. At the time that was implemented ample was assessed to be about 9% of GDP. So currently that is the way that we're looking at things," she said.