11.3.21
On November 3, following its two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the Federal Reserve announced it will commence withdrawing emergency stimulus support it has been providing since the onset of the pandemic. This will take the form of reducing the agency’s $120 billion a month bond buying program which include mortgage-backed and treasury securities. The scaling back is set to begin this month with formal plans to end it by June 2022. The latest decision reflects optimism within the Fed that the economy is on the right track to improvement. With this anticipated announcement, market observers expect investors to now turn their attention to when the central bank will begin to raise interest rates from near zero.