Summary

• Anyone who had been paying attention to the US monetary policy conversation in the past few weeks knew, within a very tight margin of error, what was actually going to happen at this week’s FOMC meeting.
• Nothing, as in, no change to the current Fed funds target rate range of 3.5-3.75 percent.
• Yesterday’s statement came in at a terse 132 words, did away with just about any word that did not absolutely need to be there, and entirely did away with any language that could be interpreted as forward guidance.
• Given Kevin Warsh’s well-publicized dislike of any kind of forward guidance, the fact that there actually was a dot plot was itself a revelation.

Anyone who had been paying attention to the US monetary policy conversation in the past few weeks knew, within a very tight margin of error, what was actually going to happen at this week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting.