"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"
There was not much of a change in the statement wording except the Fed added this, "In recent months, there has been a lack of further progress toward the Committee's 2% inflation objective." This is code for the Fed doesn't have more confidence relative to the March meeting to commit to when to start cutting rates.
The surprise was in the QT tapering plans where expectations were widely held that Treasury drawdowns would be $30b per month from $60b but instead the Fed went down to $25b. I'd like to hear what Powell gives as the reason. As expected, there is no change to MBS QT. Either way, I do think he'll make it clear that their eventual end game for QT and where bank reserves settle out at won't change and slowing monthly QT will only stretch out the timeline on it further than otherwise.
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