WORLD
Fed ramps up economic stimulus, ready to do more
Baku, June 21 (AZERTAC). The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday delivered another round of monetary stimulus and said it was ready to do even more to help an increasingly fragile U.S. economic recovery.
The central bank expanded its "Operation Twist" by $267 billion, meaning it will sell that amount of short-term securities to buy longer-term ones to keep long-term borrowing costs down. The program, which was due to expire this month, will now run through the end of the year.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, speaking at a news conference after a two-day policy meeting, said the central bank was concerned Europe`s prolonged debt crisis was dampening U.S. economic activity and employment.
"If we are not seeing sustained improvement in the labor market that would require additional action," he said. "We still do have considerable scope to do more and we are prepared to do more."
The Fed slashed its estimates for U.S. economic growth this year to a range of 1.9 percent to 2.4 percent, down from an April projection of 2.4 percent to 2.9 percent. It cut forecasts for 2013 and 2014, as well.
In addition, officials said they expect the job market to make slower progress than they did just a couple months ago, with the unemployment rate now seen hovering at 8 percent or higher for the rest of this year. It stood at 8.2 percent in May.
The Fed`s announcement met with a mixed reaction in financial markets. U.S. stocks see-sawed, with the benchmark S&P 500 index closing down slightly, while prices for most government bonds slipped. The dollar fell against the euro and rose against the yen.
A number of economists said the Fed was likely to eventually launch a more aggressive program to buy bonds outright. It has already purchased $2.3 trillion in debt in two earlier bouts of so-called quantitative easing.
"The burden of proof may now be on the incoming data to prove that a third round of large-scale asset purchases may not be necessary," said Millan Mulraine, economic strategist at TD Securities in New York.