ASSSIGNMENT: FED WATCH

General Instructions: Monetary Policy Analysis

Match, compare and contrast recent statements from the Chair of the FED, from the Beige Book, from the FED Directive, and from the FED Minutes to provide insight/evidence of Open Market Operations and the intentions of OMOs. Use Statements from the different sources from around the same time period, so that the statements contain comparable information. Your intention is to associate this analysis with its impact on the financial institution you have chosen to investigate and the broad financial services industry.

Specific Instructions:

Complete the various requested elements under each of the following four sections.

Visit the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System web page.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/policy.htm

1. Click on Federal Open Market Committee

Read through the page.

a. Note the rotation: who is a permanent member, which two alternate every other year, and who are the three-president rotations. Note the current voting members of the FOMC.

b. Read the most recent FOMC STATEMENT; summarize it in your own words highlighting the wording which indicates to you how the FED is indicating the most important policy issue for this time period.

c. Read the MINUTES of the most recent FOMC meeting; summarize the minutes highlighting the wording which indicates to you how the FED is indicating the most important policy issue for this time period.

2. Click on Policy Tools

Read through each of the three in turn.

a. Note the intended Federal Funds Rate to the Actual Federal Funds Rate recently. (Actual Federal Funds Rates are available on the web.)

b. Note the recent discount rate levels throughout the year.

c. Note the current reserve requirements for commercial banks.

3. Click on Reports

Visit Monetary Policy Reports to Congress

a. Read the most recent Testimony of Chairman Ben S. Bernanke.
(This will appear such as from 2006:
Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress

Before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate July 19, 2006.)

Note how the Chairman's statements coincide with both the minutes and the statement read previously.

b. Visit the Beige Book

Note what "most districts" reported most recently.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/beigebook/beigebook201208.htm

popular discussion of Beige book

http://stream.marketwatch.com/story/jackson-hole-federal-reserve-conference-2012/SS-4-10098/SS-4-10134/

c. Visit Factors Affecting Reserve Balances

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/

found under Principal Economic Indicators

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/Current/

4. Using the listing below and the numbers provided on the site from the most recent release, note which accounts are OMO, which accounts are associated with Discount Window Lending, and which are associated with the Reserve Requirements. Using the change in amount in the key entries from the previous year, explain what you believe the FED has been doing throughout the year with each tool at its disposal.