Real Estate Appraisers In City of Zachary Louisiana
Comment: This could be Good News For The Zachary Louisiana Real Estate Market.
Source: Yahoo Finance
By Mark FelsenthalThu Feb 14, 5:13 PM ET
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday held the door open to more
interest rate cuts to help the struggling U.S. economy, but told Congress the
central bank expects growth to pick up later in the year.
The Fed “will act in a timely manner as needed to support growth and to
provide adequate insurance against downside risks,” Bernanke told the Senate
Banking Committee.
He acknowledged the outlook for the economy had worsened in recent months and
said risks to growth had picked up. His comments reinforced investors’
expectations the central bank would lower interest rates by a half-percentage
point at its next meeting on March 18.
However, the central bank chairman also said he expects sluggish growth to
give way to a somewhat stronger expansion in the second half of the year as the
impact of fiscal and monetary stimulus now put in place is felt.
“Our policy stance must be determined in light of the medium-term forecast
for real activity and inflation, as well as the risks to that forecast,” he
said.
The Fed has already lowered benchmark borrowing costs by 2.25 percentage
points since mid-September, taking the overnight federal funds rate down to 3
percent.
Bernanke painted a somber picture of risks facing the economy, and stock
prices and the dollar fell on his gloomy assessment. The Dow Jones industrial
average ended down more than 175 points, or 1.4 percent on the day.
U.S. short-term interest rate futures prices implied about a 20 percent
chance the central bank will drop rates by three-quarters of a percentage point
in March after Bernanke’s testimony, up from as low as the 6 percent implied
expectation earlier. A half-point cut is fully priced in.
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Real Estate Appraisers In City of Zachary Louisiana
