Fed keeps key rate near zero, sees inf - 股票

原文標題：

Fed keeps key rate near zero, sees inflation as 'transitory'
美聯儲將關鍵利率保持在零附近，將通脹視為“暫時性”

原文連結：

https://reurl.cc/Gd21yx

發布時間：

2021/04/29 about 3 hours ago By: The Canadian Press

原文內容：

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy is quickly strengthening, inflation is showing
signs of picking up and the nation is making progress toward defeating the
viral pandemic.

But on Wednesday, Chair Jerome Powell made clear that the Federal Reserve
isn't even close to beginning a pullback in its ultra-low interest rate
policies.

In a statement after its latest policy meeting, the Fed said it would keep
its benchmark short-term rate near zero, where it’s been pinned since the
pandemic erupted nearly a year ago. The goal is to help keep loan rates down,
for individuals and businesses, to encourage borrowing and spending. The Fed
also said it would keep buying $120 billion in bonds each month to try to
keep longer-term borrowing rates low, too.

At a news conference, Powell stressed that the Fed would need to see more
evidence of sustained and substantial improvements in the job market and the
overall economy before it would consider reducing its bond purchases. In the
past, Powell has said that the Fed's eventual pullback in its economic
support would start with a reduction in its bond buying and only after that
in a potential rate hike.

“We’re just going to need to see more data," Powell said. "It’s not more
complicated than that.”

Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, noted that "although it
took a more upbeat tone on the economic outlook and acknowledged that
inflation has risen, the Fed offered no hints that it was considering slowing
the pace of its asset purchases, let alone thinking about raising interest
rates.”

Powell did highlight the economy's improvement in recent months but said much
more progress was necessary.

“Since the beginning of the year, indicators of economic activity and
employment have strengthened,” the chairman said. “Household spending on
goods has risen robustly."

He also highlighted the striking progress the nation has made against the
pandemic — a key point given that the chairman has often said that the
economic recovery depends on the virus being brought under control.

“Continued vaccinations," Powell said, “should allow for a return to more
normal economic conditions later this year.”

The U.S. economy has been posting unexpectedly strong gains in recent weeks,
with barometers of hiring, spending and manufacturing all surging. Most
economists say they detect the early stages of what could be a robust and
sustained recovery, with coronavirus case counts declining, vaccinations
rising and Americans spending their stimulus-boosted savings.

In March, employers added nearly 1 million jobs — an unheard-of figure
before the pandemic. And in April, consumer confidence jumped to its highest
level since the pandemic flattened the economy in March of last year.

The quickening pace of growth, on top of additional large spending packages
proposed by President Joe Biden, have raised fears among some analysts that
inflation, long quiescent, could rise uncomfortably fast. Raw materials and
parts, from lumber to copper to semiconductors, have spiked in price as
demand has outstripped the ability of suppliers and shippers to keep up.

Some companies have recently said they plan to raise prices to offset the
cost of more expensive supplies. They include the consumer products giants
Procter & Gamble and 3M as well as Honeywell, which makes industrial and
consumer goods.

Powell, however, downplayed concerns that these trends could trigger
sustained high inflation. He said he expects supply bottlenecks to cause only
temporary price increases.

“An episode of one-time price increases as the economy reopens is not likely
to lead to persistent year-over-year inflation into the future,” he said.

Clogged supply chains won't affect Fed policy, Powell said, because “they're
temporary and expected to resolve themselves.”

Under a new framework the Fed adopted last summer, it will no longer raise
rates in anticipation of high inflation, which had been its policy for
decades. Powell and other Fed officials have made clear they want to see
inflation actually exceed their 2% annual inflation target — and not just
briefly — before they’d consider raising rates.

They’ve set that goal so that inflation would average 2% over time, to
offset the fact that it has been stuck below 2% for nearly the entire past
decade. Fed policymakers favour price gains at that level as a cushion
against deflation — a prolonged drop in prices and wages that typically
makes people and companies reluctant to spend.

One reason Powell has said he thinks the inflation pressures building in the
U.S. economy will prove temporary is that, for now, most Americans don’t
expect prices to rise much in the long run.

At his news conference, Powell was asked how the Fed would respond if
inflation expectations were to increase before the economy had achieved
something approximating full employment.

“For inflation to move up in a persistent way that moves inflation
expectations up,” the chairman said, “that would take some time, and you
would think it would be quite likely we would be in very strong labour
markets for that to be happening."

Once expectations for inflation do rise, they can be self-fulfilling: Workers
start demanding higher pay to offset expected price gains, and retailers
begin raising prices to offset increased wages and supply costs. This can set
off a wage-price spiral, something the United States last experienced in the
late 1960s and 1970s.

Apart from inflation, the Fed’s new framework includes a sweeping definition
of maximum employment that includes fully recovering the jobs lost to the
pandemic, including among many people of colour and low-income workers,
before it even considers a rate hike. Powell has also indicated that the Fed
would like the roughly 4 million Americans who stopped looking for work after
being laid off in the past year to be hired before it considers tightening
rates.

機翻如下：

華盛頓--美國經濟正在迅速增強，通脹率有回升的跡象，國家在戰勝病毒大流行方面正在
取得進展。

但在週三，主席傑羅姆-鮑威爾明確表示，美聯儲甚至沒有接近開始回撤其超低利率政策
。

在最近一次政策會議後的聲明中，美聯儲表示，它將把其基準短期利率保持在零附近，自
近一年前大流行病爆發以來，它一直被釘在那裡。其目的是説明壓低個人和企業的貸款利
率，以鼓勵借貸和消費。美聯儲還表示，它將繼續每月購買1200億美元的債券，以試圖將
長期借款利率也保持在低水準。

在一次新聞發佈會上，鮑威爾強調，美聯儲需要看到就業市場和整體經濟持續大幅改善的
更多證據，才會考慮減少債券購買量。過去，鮑威爾曾表示，美聯儲最終回撤對經濟的支
持將從減少債券購買開始，之後才是潛在的加息。

"我們只是需要看到更多資料，"鮑威爾說。"沒有比這更複雜的了。"

凱投宏觀(Capital Economics)的經濟學家保羅-阿什沃思(Paul Ashworth)指出，"儘管它
對經濟前景採取了更加樂觀的基調，並承認通脹已經上升，但美聯儲沒有暗示它正在考慮
放緩其資產購買的步伐，更不用說考慮加息了。"

鮑威爾確實強調了最近幾個月經濟的改善，但他說還需要更大的進展。

"自今年年初以來，經濟活動和就業的指標已經加強，"主席說。"家庭商品支出已強勁增
長。"

他還強調了國家在防治大流行病方面取得的顯著進展--這是一個關鍵點，因為主席經常說
，經濟復蘇取決於病毒是否得到控制。

"繼續接種疫苗，"鮑威爾說，"應該可以在今年晚些時候恢復到更正常的經濟狀況。"

最近幾周，美國經濟一直在發佈出乎意料的強勁收益，招聘、支出和製造業的晴雨錶都在
激增。大多數經濟學家說，他們檢測到了可能是強勁和持續復蘇的早期階段，冠狀病毒病
例數在下降，疫苗接種率在上升，美國人花掉了他們受刺激的儲蓄。

3月份，雇主增加了近100萬個工作崗位--這是在大流行病之前聞所未聞的數字。而在4月
份，消費者信心躍升至自去年3月大流行病使經濟持平以來的最高水準。

增長速度的加快，加上總統喬-拜登提出的額外的大型支出計畫，使一些分析家擔心，長
期沉寂的通貨膨脹可能快速上升，令人不安。從木材到銅再到半導體，原材料和零部件的
價格已經飆升，因為需求已經超過了供應商和運輸商的能力。

一些公司最近表示，他們計畫提高價格以抵消更昂貴的供應成本。這些公司包括消費產品
巨頭寶潔公司和3M公司，以及生產工業和消費產品的霍尼韋爾公司。

然而，鮑威爾淡化了對這些趨勢可能引發持續高通脹的擔憂。他說，他預計供應瓶頸只會
導致暫時的價格上漲。

"他說："隨著經濟的重新開放，一次性價格上漲的事件不太可能導致未來持續的同比通脹
。

鮑威爾說，供應鏈的堵塞不會影響美聯儲的政策，因為 "它們是暫時的，預計會自行解決
。"

根據美聯儲去年夏天通過的一個新框架，它將不再因預期高通脹而加息，而這是它幾十年
來的政策。鮑威爾和其他美聯儲官員已經明確表示，他們希望看到通脹率實際超過其2%的
年度通脹目標--而不僅僅是短暫的--然後他們才會考慮加息。

他們設定的目標是使通脹率在一段時間內平均達到2%，以抵消過去十年中幾乎一直停留在
2%以下的事實。美聯儲政策制定者傾向於將價格漲幅控制在這一水準，作為對通貨緊縮的
緩衝--價格和工資的長期下降通常使人們和公司不願意消費。

鮑威爾說，他認為美國經濟中正在形成的通脹壓力將被證明是暫時的，原因之一是，目前
大多數美國人並不期望價格在長期內有很大的上漲。

在他的新聞發佈會上，鮑威爾被問到，如果在經濟實現近似充分就業之前，通脹預期增加
，美聯儲將如何應對。

主席說："對於通脹以一種持續的方式上升，使通脹預期上升，""這將需要一些時間，你
會認為我們很可能處於非常強大的勞動力市場，這才會發生。"

一旦對通貨膨脹的預期上升，它們可能會自我實現。工人開始要求提高工資以抵消預期的
價格上漲，而零售商開始提高價格以抵消增加的工資和供應成本。這可能會引發工資-價
格螺旋上升，美國上次經歷這種情況是在1960年代末和1970年代。

除了通貨膨脹，美聯儲的新框架還包括對最大就業的全面定義，其中包括在考慮加息之前
完全恢復因大流行病而失去的工作，包括許多有色人種和低收入工人。鮑威爾還表示，美
聯儲希望在考慮收緊利率之前，過去一年被解雇後停止尋找工作的大約400萬美國人能夠
被雇用。




心得/評論：

不但樂觀

而且認為通膨只是暫時性的

不會造成更多的同比通膨

不過美聯儲下手的時候通常也沒有在昭告天下的


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