Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and statement: On 4 May, the Federal Reserve (Fed) hiked the Fed funds rate by 50bp to 0.75-1.00%, the first back-to-back hike since the second quarter of 2006. The FOMC statement signaled the start of a series of rate hikes. The Fed downplayed the negative Q1 GDP data, while upgrading its inflation assessment.
The Fed also announced the start of Quantitative Tightening (QT) for 1 June, by shrinking the balance sheet by $30bn per month in US Treasuries and $17.5bn in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) for the next three months, and then ramping up QT to a maximum cap of $60bn per month in US Treasuries and a maximum cap of $35bn per month in MBS.
You can now read the full whitepaper at the link below
