@ The White House
In the morning, the President will travel to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In Cedar Rapids, the President will tour and deliver remarks at Conveyor Engineering and Manufacturing.
In the afternoon, the President will depart Cedar Rapids, Iowa en route Chandler, Arizona. Later in the afternoon, the President will deliver remarks at the Intel Ocotillo Campus in Chandler, Arizona.
In the evening, the President will depart Arizona en route Las Vegas, Nevada.
@ Wall Street
FOMC press release 12:30 pm / press conference 2:15 pm
This week?s FOMC meeting kicks off a year that could see major changes to the Fed?s near-term policy stance and longer-term targets and strategy. In addition to the standard meeting statement, the committee will release an updated Summary of Economic Projections (SEP).
To date, the SEP has included ranges of forecasts for GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation over the next few years. As was agreed to at the last FOMC meeting, the SEP will now also incorporate members? assessments of appropriate monetary policy, including a range of options for the appropriate path of the fed funds rate and timing of the first rate hike. The numbers will likely show that most members think it appropriate to keep the fed funds rate at zero through most of 2013, though there will be some dissents.
Will the Fed pull the trigger on QE III ? another round of large scale asset purchases? Our projection is that the Fed will do another round of easing in 2012, this time aimed at the housing market through the purchase of mortgage-backed securities.
But the better recent data backdrop means that the committee is likely to hold off at this week's meeting, allowing markets to absorb the other changes and allowing the Fed to take more time to see whether recent improvements mean that the economy is now taking off.
