Powell's press conference - key takeaways:
- Economic activity has continued to recover
- Household spending on durable goods has been strong and moved above pre-pandemic level
- Business investment has picked up
- However, services spending has been slow
- Path to recovery remains highly uncertain
- Roughly half of the jobs losses have been erased
- Economic downturn has not fallen equally on all Americas
- Full recovery unlikely until people are confident of safety
- Concerns regarding recent rise of new COVID-19 cases
- Housing sector has fully recovered
- QE program was discussed at the meeting
- The Fed believes the asset purchase program supports the economy
- The Fed believes in achieving a dual mandate: jobs and inflation
More importantly, there are some changes in terms of publication of forecasts, which will take place in December. Two new charts will be published to show how each FOMC member's perception of the risk balance has changed
