Just about nobody had been expecting the Fed to raise the funds target again today. Thus, the only real point of interest in today's FOMC press release was the timing of the previously-announced plan to start unwinding QE (or balance sheet normalization, as the Fed prefers to call it). Would the Fed announce a timetable?
No, it would not. The press release simply stated that the FOMC "expects to begin implementing its balance sheet normalization program relatively soon". Exact timing, as with the further rate hikes that are surely coming, depends on the data flow.
It's hard to blame the Fed for keeping its cards close to its collective chest. No central bank has ever tried anything like QE before; the experiment has almost certainly run for much longer than the FOMC expected when it launched it; and there is no playbook for unwinding it. Ending QE will not be like pulling off a bandage, where the faster you do it, the less it hurts. Getting this wrong could be way more damaging than tightening rates a little too fast. All the same, a touch more clarity from the Fed today might have been helpful, if only to avoid the impression that it doesn't quite know how to proceed.
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