New York Times WASHINGTON — It’s the end of Q.E., and financial markets feel fine.
The Federal Reserve is widely expected to announce on Wednesday the end of its latest bond-buying program, known as quantitative easing, or Q.E. Fed officials say the purchases served to strengthen job growth, and the economic recovery no longer needs quite so much of the central bank’s support.
Investors panicked and markets convulsed in the summer of 2013 when the Fed first hinted that this day was coming. But the Fed has since avoided all the drama by loudly announcing a schedule for the retreat and then adhering to it with absolute fidelity.
“The exit protocol has been so well documented for the last nine months that the market has fully priced it in,” said Barbara J. Cummings, who manages a $3.5 billion fixed-income portfolio for Boston Private Wealth Management. “I don’t anticipate any movement. I feel as though this is one meeting where they almost don’t need to hold it because they have made it perfectly clear.”Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, at a meeting of the Fed’s board of governors last week. CreditSusan Walsh/Associated Press
The decision, expected at the end of a two-day meeting of the Fed’s policy-making committee, would cap a six-year period during which the central bank has expanded its holdings of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities to almost $4.5 trillion, from less than $1 trillion in mid-2008.
