PREVIEW - What The Fed Is Mulling At This Week's Meeting
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Source: Reuters
Reuters reports: The Federal Reserve this week is expected to give a nod to signs the U.S. recession is waning but will likely warn that the recovery will be slow and dampen any expectations it will soon start to raise interest rates.
Risks remain and any recovery is likely to be slow, policymakers have warned in recent speeches.
Many American households still face "tattered finances" after the loss of trillions of dollars of wealth through the drop in home prices and the stock market, Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Fed Bank, said in July.
The U.S. Conference Board's consumer sentiment index fell to 46.6 in July from 49.3 in June as the percentage of Americans saying jobs are hard to get increased.
A number of policymakers point to the collapse in commercial real estate prices as potentially putting the recovery in jeopardy.
U.S. commercial real estate prices have fallen about 35 percent from their peak in October 2007 and are a major driver of banks' loan losses. About $2.2 trillion of U.S. commercial properties bought or refinanced since early 2004 have fallen below the price at which they changed hands, according to a report by Real Capital Analytics, a research firm based in New York.
View the full article on Reuters: PREVIEW - What The Fed Is Mulling At This Week's Meeting
Posted by: Mark Alferman