"Some of the participants, but not all of the participants, did incorporate some assumption of a change in fiscal policy into their projections. And that may have been a factor that was one of several that occasioned these shifts. But I want to emphasize that the shifts that you see here are really very tiny."
- Janet Yellen, December 14, 2016 press conference
While Goldman was mostly delighted with the Fed's statement, Evercore ISI is far less sanguine about what the Fed revealed today,
As expected, in addition to raising the Fed Funds rate by 25 bps, the Fed similarly noted that it would revise the mechanics behind its reverse repo operations, raising the rate it charges on reverse repos by 25 bps to 0.5%, the actual means by which the Fed will hike rates for most market participants.
Here is the statement that the Fed released regarding the change in overnight reverse repos:
Just as Mario Draghi exlained how his reduced bond buying was not a taper, we suspect the narrative espoused by Janet Yellen in her press conference today will be just how dovish this rate hike is.. and how the rate of normalization will be very gradual. The big question is, how will she respond to question about Trump's fiscal stimulus plan? Of course, this also may be her last flourish as Fed head, so anything goes.
Live Feed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMmdpP9SaAo
While the 25 bps rate hike was a given, the question on everyone's mind was how many rate hikes does the Fed envision for 2017. The answer, somewhat surprisingly, is three, an increase of one compared to the September meeting.
This is median assessment of appropriate pace of policy according to the dots: