Fed Stands Pat, No QE3; Gold Maintains Gains

The Federal Reserve decided not to launch a third round of quantitative easing (QE3) or expand its set of accommodative monetary policies at its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday.

Today’s FOMC announcement was released at 12:30pm ET – rather than its usual 2:15pm ET – because Chairman Ben Bernanke will be holding his second-ever post-FOMC press conference later this afternoon.

The large majority of the FOMC statement was identical to the previous statement in September – with the Fed choosing to continue with Operation Twist.

One noteable difference at today’s meeting was the existence of only one dissenting vote – that from Charles Evans, who “supported additional policy accommodation at this time.”

At the prior two meetings, three Fed presidents – Fisher, Plosser, and Kocherlakota – voted against committing to a near-zero Fed funds rate through mid-2013 and against Operation Twist.

Bernanke held his first and only press conference in April of this year – which turned out to largely be a non-event.  As GoldAlert wrote at the time, “It was quite disappointing to hear the softball questions lobbed at Bernanke by many members of the mainstream media.  The American people would have been much better served if the journalists in attendance had asked the type of challenging, more serious questions that get to the heart of the unfortunate consequences of the Fed’s policies.”

The full FOMC statement is available at the Fed’s website:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20111102a.htm

Gold futures showed a modest reaction to the Fed statement, as they maintained the large majority of their gains near $1,738 per ounce.