Powell On Conditions That May Warrant A Faster Pace Of Tapering

Q: What are the conditions that would warrant a faster pace of tapering? How would you characterize the risk of an acceleration of the taper?

• Powell basically quotes from the statement: "assuming the economy performs broadly as expected, the committee judges similar reductions in the pace of net asset purchases will be appropriate each month and we are prepared to deviate from that path in warranted by changes in the economic outlook."
• Says he's "not going to give you a lot more detail on what that might be. Of course, if we do see something like that happening, then we will communicate very transparently and openly about that., but I'm going to leave it with the words in the statement. "
• Re accelerating the taper, says: "We are prepared to speed up or slow down the pace of reductions in asset purchases, if it's warranted by changes in the economic outlook. If we feel something like that is happening, we will be very transparent, we wouldn't want to surprise markets. We will say, in light of these factors, we are considering doing this, and then we would either do it or not do it. But I'm not going to start making up examples of what that might be today. "