The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) had its latest meeting last week. As expected, no significant policy change resulted from the meeting. The Federal Funds rate remained at virtually zero and the Treasury will continue with the purchase of agency papers and Treasury Securities initiated in March. That the benchmark interest rate remained unchanged is no surprise because it is already as low as can be. The continuation of the security purchase plan could be interpreted either way depending on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist. Either the FOMC thinks the economy has stabilized enough that no increase is necessary or there’s not enough improvement in the economy to warrant scaling back purchases yet. Read more...