Half of Fed sees ‘QE’ ending late this year : Report

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) 

About half of the Federal Reserve’s 19 senior officials said they would support ending the central bank’s monthly purchase of $85 billion in bonds by year-end, according to an account of the most recent Fed policy meeting released Wednesday

The meeting minutes showed that “many” other members said asset purchases would likely be needed into 2014

A few wanted to stop the purchases immediately

While the forecasts suggest a possible aggressive timetable for tapering bond purchases, the minutes reveal that the discussion about tapering during the meeting was all over the map

Not all 19 members of the Fed had a vote at the meeting
Only 12 are voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee
The Fed had already disclosed that two of the 12 voting members voted against the decision
The minutes show a wide range of opinions among the Fed leadership about tapering the bond-purchase plan
“Many” Fed voting members said that further improvement in the outlook for the labor market would be required before it would be appropriate to taper
“Some” also wanted to see an acceleration in growth actually happen before acting
 However, “several” judged that winding down asset purchases would likely soon be warranted

The officials rejected setting several numerical targets for tapering, saying that would be difficult to communicate
At his press conference, Bernanke mentioned that the central bank expects unemployment to be around 7% when the central back is able to stop buying bonds altogether
The committee is scheduled to hold its next meeting July 30-31