Minutes from the Federal Reserve's historic Dec. 16 monetary policy committee meeting may reveal the reasons for its shift towards quantitative easing, the policy of flooding the financial system with liquidity.
At its Dec. 16 rate decision, the Fed went beyond market expectations and cut the key interest rate to a band between zero and 0.25%. The minutes from that meeting will be released at 2 p.m. EST.
The minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's decision is often old news, yet it has been only three weeks since the last meeting and the economic picture has hardly changed in the interim.
Elsa Dargent from Natixis said the minutes, "will give an insight into the debates" that led the central bank to embark on unconventional policy. She also said to pay special attention to any mention of deflationary risks, as well as the degree of opposition within the committee.
However, others believe the minutes are unlikely to enlighten market participants about where the Fed is heading.
Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, said the statement accompanying the rate decision was quite direct in stating that rates will remain at "exceptionally low levels ... for some time," so those hoping for more elaboration in the minutes may be disappointed.
He said the Fed's dramatic action was probably led by Chairman Ben Bernanke and Vice Chairman Donald Kohn. The minutes may reveal some resistance to the idea of cutting rates so dramatically - the market had only contemplated a cut to 0.25%, but not lower - but the bottom line is that the decision passed without dissent, he said.
Charmaine Buskas, senior economics strategist at TD Securities, said the FOMC minutes will be more important than any of the economic data released on Tuesday.
"Now that it's clear that the Fed has embarked on this new policy, we'll be looking for any clues about how long they think the downturn will last," she said.
Buskas said markets will be looking for any details as to how the Fed came to the decision to shift policy, as well as any forward-looking verbiage on how the Fed will respond to the crisis.
However, she too said it is unlikely the minutes will elaborate on the policy shift. "You always have hope, but I don't think we'll get anything of the sort," she said. "The situation is still very fluid... the Fed will want to keep its cards as close to its chest as possible."
By Patrick McGee and edited by Stephen Huebl
©CEP News Ltd. 2009