MNI: Powell Excerpt: Policy Still Accomodative

     WASHINGTON (MN) - The following is a response of Federal Reserve Chairman

Jerome Powell to a question from a reporter at his press conference following

Wednesday's Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

     Powell: I think if you look at the dot plot and the FOMC, the rate even

after today's move is below the neutral run estimate of every single participant

who submits an estimate of that. That's why this is the perfect time to take the

language out because, you know, it's perfectly clear that there can't be a

signal because, you know, by definition, that means an accommodative policy. 

It wasn't because policy is not accommodative. It is still accommodative. 

     The thinking was more as I mentioned -- it's more that the language has run

its useful life. There's another POIRNT, though, too, which is, you know, we

don't want to suggest either that we have this precise understanding of where

accommodative stops or suggest that that's a really important point in our

thinking. 

     What we're going to be doing, assuming we stay on this path, is we're going

to be carefully monitoring incoming data from the financial markets and from the

economy and asking ourselves whether our policy is achieving the goals we want

to achieve. You know, sustain the economy. Maximize employment. 

Stabilize prices. That's the way we're thinking about it. That does kind of

amount to thinking less about one's precise point estimate of the neutral rate. 

That's how we think about that. 

--MNI Washington Bureau; +1 (973) 494-2611; email: harrison.clarke@marketnews.com

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