November 5, 2020

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve kept its loose monetary policy intact on Thursday and pledged again to do whatever it can in coming months to sustain a U.S. economic recovery losing speed amid a spreading coronavirus pandemic and facing uncertainty over a still-undecided presidential election.

The economy is still growing but “I would not say that anybody is feeling comfortable about this,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a news conference after the Fed’s latest two-day policy meeting. “We’ve gotten through the first five, six months of the expansion better than expected ... But we have to be humble where we are relative to this disease. It has not gone away.”

The short-term outlook is also clouded by doubts about where fiscal policy may be headed in coming weeks, or how smooth a possible transition would be between an incoming Democratic administration led by Joe Biden and a lame-duck administration led by Republican President Donald Trump that will still hold sway over upcoming decisions on funding the government and extending the U.S. central bank’s emergency programs.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN27L0I6