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Federal Open Market Committee
Conference Call
April 29,

PRESENT:

Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Ms.

1987

Volcker, Chairman
Corrigan, Vice Chairman
Angell
Boykin
Heller
Johnson
Keehn
Seger

Messrs. Black, and Forrestal, Alternate Members
of the Federal Open Market Committee
Messrs. Guffey, Melzer, and Morris, President of
the Federal Reserve Banks of Kansas City,
St. Louis, and Boston, respectively
Mr.
Mr.
Ms.
Mr.
Mr.

Kohn, Secretary and Staff Adviser
Bernard, Assistant Secretary
Loney, Deputy Assistant Secretary
Bradfield, General Counsel
Truman, Economist (International)

Mr. Prell, Associate Economist
Mr. Sternlight, Manager for Domestic Operations,
System Open Market Account
Mr. Cross, Manager for Foreign Operations,
System Open Market Account
Mr. Coyne, Assistant to the Board of Governors
Messrs. Hendricks, Powell, and Stone, First Vice
Presidents, Federal Reserve Banks of
Cleveland, San Francisco, and Philadelphia,
respectively

Transcript of Federal Open Market Committee Conference Call
of April 29, 1987
MR. BERNARD.
[Roll call of Reserve Banks expected to
participate in the conference call.]
Thank you. All of the Reserve
Banks are on, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. Well, gentlemen and lady here--we only
have one lady on the Committee, now.
MS. SEGER.

[Our number is]

reduced by 50 percent.

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. Obviously, there has been quite a lot of
turmoil going on in markets recently, whatever market one looks at.
We have had problems with open market operations.
We have a number of
policy issues, and I thought it was appropriate just to review where
we are.
I think it's fair to say that pretty much since the last Open
Market Committee meeting, pressures have developed on the dollar.
That occurred not long after that meeting. And in accordance with the
discussion at that meeting, we were playing things rather cautiously
but not really changing the borrowing target in any overt or non-overt
way. We had our usual problems in sometimes meeting and sometimes
missing targets; there was no change in the target but there was
erring on the side of restraint--if that's the right word--in making
any day-to-day judgments that may have been appropriate.
In accordance with the discussion and given what was going on
in the market, [our approach] changed a bit this week. We assumed
that under these circumstances we would aim overtly at a somewhat
higher target, something around $400 million. I think the market has
that sense now--not about a number but a feeling that we probably have
deliberately snugged, if that's the right word, this week. Now, in
fact, we have many fewer reserves out there than we intended because
of technical problems, which I'll let Mr. Sternlight and Mr. Kohn
discuss with you. But what has happened, essentially, is that we were
willing to aim slightly higher, and then all the reserve factors came
in strongly adverse both yesterday and today. We don't know whether
that will continue to be the result. We put in a lot of money both
yesterday and today--as much money as the market would take--but we
still have a little hole for ourselves just in terms of strict
targeting. Given the direction in which we're going, I'm not sure
that that's any disaster from the standpoint of the market. You will
have observed that both the exchange market and the bond market--and I
think those two phenomena are not unrelated--have considerably
strengthened over the past couple of days, although they have had some
intermeeting ups and downs. Just as a matter of general background,
the Board is going to have to keep the question of the appropriateness
of a discount rate move under consideration. All of this is somewhat
dependent, at least ideally, on what goes on abroad. There is at
least some verbal indication that the Japanese would like to see rates
ease a little in Tokyo markets. They have a sharply declining bond
market rate; that's just the opposite of what's been going on here.
It's a reflection both of expectational factors and actual shifts of
purchases out of U.S. bonds into Japanese bonds by Japanese investors,
without necessarily at all connoting a change in monetary policy. But
they have told us that they would aim toward lower money market rates.
In fact, I was told this morning that they said that publicly in some

4/29/87

kind of press contact that the Governor has.
attention here; I haven't seen it anyway.

MR. JOHNSON.

It didn't receive much

They didn't say it very loudly.

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. I don't think it was said. It's very
strange; the Japanese press generally picks it up and reverberates it.
They told me they said something publicly and I'm trying to get more
details on that. The only other thing I would add is that I have to
testify tomorrow morning, not on monetary policy but on risk-based
capital. I'm sure this question [of current policy] will arise. And
I would think that I should confirm that we have had a small snugging
or tightening, or whatever word seems appropriate at the time, in the
light of the circumstances in the market. I certainly would not try
to get that out of perspective; I'd try to avoid further trouble.
That's about where we are at the moment. Oh! I might just indicate,
and the staff can describe it more fully, that while all this has been
going on--and it's one of the reasons the reserve factors are moving
so strongly against us--the money supply, or M1 at least, has
ballooned very sharply over the middle of the month, presumably
related to larger-than-expected tax payments. But it hasn't washed
out yet. Peter, why don't you describe it?
MR. STERNLIGHT. I think both things that have happened on
the reserve supply could be well be related to the tax situation,
particularly the individual taxes that have been coming in very
heavily right about April 15th. And since it takes a while to process
those, particularly the individual payments, we've been getting much,
much higher Treasury balances than had been expected. At the same
time, I think individuals must have built up their transaction
accounts to be able to make those payments. So, we've got a very
large indicated increase in the April 20th week. And we're just
finding out in the last day or two that where a sharp rundown had been
assumed in the following week, we're not getting much indication of
that rundown. So, it's giving us much higher required reserves.
In
just the last three days we've had to move up the path based on
required reserves by something like $1-1/4 billion. At that same
time, our estimates day-to-day of the Treasury's balances at the
Federal Reserve rose because those balances pretty much filled up the
capacity at the tax and loan accounts at the commercial banks. The
estimated balances at the Federal Reserve have risen by several
billion dollars. We are trying very hard to fill that reserve need
while at the same time keeping in mind the desirability of not losing
a little of the advantage we got a few days ago in the market by
deliberately hanging back in what we thought then were fairly moderate
reserve needs. With all of that, borrowing thus far in this period is
not badly out of line; it's averaging just a little over $400 million
right now for this current reserve period. The funds rate is
averaging something like 6.44 percent, although over the last couple
of days it has been more in the 6-5/8 to 6-3/4 percent area. But, as
the Chairman said, in the last couple of days the market has gotten a
sense--it's not 100 percent sure--that there has been some snugging or
deliberate lessening on the Desk's part of its generosity in providing
reserves.
CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
about anything?

Mr. Kohn, do you want to say anything

4/29/87

MR. KOHN. Well, I can fill in a little on the money supply,
Mr. Chairman. As Mr. Sternlight suggested, we expect to publish a
very large increase tomorrow afternoon--on the order of $15 billion-an increase widely expected by the market, which has seen these
deposit inflows.
And we're not getting the kind of runoff in the
following week that we expected. As a result, with an expectation of
a decline in the week after that--that is, the first week in May--we
still are projecting M1 growth in April in the high teens.
Apparently, a good portion of the funds shifted to demand deposits and
OCDs seems to have come from M2 components so that the non-M1 part of
M2 has been weaker than we expected. So, M2 and M3 may be coming out
in the 5-1/2 to 6 percent area, which isn't far from what the
Committee's expectations were at the time of the FOMC meeting. Now,
how much of that has been artificially inflated by the tax effect, we
won't know for a couple of weeks, until that comes out.
CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. Mr. Cross may want to bring us up-to-date
or give us a little flavor of what has been going on in the exchange
markets in recent days.
MR. CROSS.
Do you hear me?

There has been more or less continuous--.

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.

Hello.

Yes.

MR. CROSS.
Okay.
If you hear me, I'll proceed. There has
been more or less continuous pressure in the exchange markets since
your last meeting at the end of March. At times the pressure has been
quite heavy. The reasons seem to be more of the same things that
we've all heard and talked about, including: discussions of what
almost seems like a trade war between us and the Japanese--which gets
a lot of attention in the markets and the newspapers; continuing bad
figures on the trade deficit; and a lack of any very impressive policy
move by the main players. The [unintelligible] did break through some
very important psychological numbers. Whereas earlier the pressure
had been very heavily between the yen and the dollar, toward the end
of last week it began to be more generalized and there were also
pressures against the mark. There have been substantial amounts of
intervention during this period totaling over
during the
month of April, of which the very heavy portion has been by the
Japanese. There is a recognition by the market that there have been
such heavy amounts of intervention. And there is some feeling by the
market that this has not been enough to deal with the situation in any
lasting way.
In addition to the heavy amounts of intervention, there
have been substantial other purchases of dollars by the central banks.
For the ones that we're on the concertation arrangement with, and that
we keep figures for, the total of the intervention and the other
purchases has been more than $20 billion of purchases officially
during the month of April. That is quite a substantial amount, well
above the rate that we were running in the first quarter.
The market

has been calmer in the past few days, partly I think in recognition
of--or a feeling that there has been--some modest change in the
monetary policy approach. Another factor is that Mr. Nakasone is
here, and although the market is quite cynical about what may come out
of that, they're reluctant to be 100 percent cynical and to be certain
that nothing will happen. So there's a kind of wait-and-see attitude.
Also, the fact that we have a number of holidays both in Europe and in

Japan over the next several days up until the middle of next week I

4/29/87

-4-

think has made the traders a little cautious. They say they will come
back and look at the situation after the Nakasone visit and in light
of what appears to be monetary policy [unintelligible].
have to say, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.

That's all I

Well, as I suggested earlier, it's quite a

turbulent period.
I think what's been going on in terms of open
market operations is pretty much what the directive would have
suggested during this period. I don't think we have to do anything

formal as a Committee, but I certainly would want to hear any comments
or deal with any questions or any observations that any of you have.
MS.

SEGER.

Maybe I missed it, but what is the borrowing

target we're now using?
I know we talked about $300 million at the
last meeting but it has been above that.
MR. STERNLIGHT.

We had been using $300 million up to this

point, but I'd say in the last day or two we've really been behaving
more as though it was a shade higher. And my understanding is that
we're prepared to use something a little higher now--I assume $400
million.
CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.

I think $400 million, notionally, would be

the target at the moment.
MR. KEEHN. Peter, this is Si Keehn. At that borrowing level
would the federal funds rate tend to ride at about a [unintelligible]

level or higher for some reason?
MR. STERNLIGHT.

I think there is such a mixture of

expectations out there that it's very hard to sort all of this out.
Just taken by itself--if there weren't that expectational element of
something possibly lurking on the discount rate--we might be having a
funds rate of 6-1/4 to 6-1/2 percent or something like that, maybe
just 6-1/4 percent. As it is, it has been more like 6-1/2 to 6-3/4
percent in recent days. And that's kind of what I would have expected
to see ahead, even without a discount rate increase. If that were to
happen as well, then I think we'd see the rate somewhat higher--not
higher by the full amount of any discount rate increase, because I
think something already has been allowed for in the market.
CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. I think the federal funds rate will be
more influenced by psychological factors within that band that you're
talking about than anything you could measure by a $100 million change
in the borrowing, given this turbulent atmosphere. If that
dissipates, the range will be down; if it doesn't, it won't.
MR. JOHNSON. Peter, what's happening in Treasury bills?
Bill yields have been fairly stable to down. Well, they did pick up a
little, but they really stayed around the fairly low level. And in
many cases, bill yields were declining at the same time that bond
yields were going up sharply. I assume this has something to do with
the Treasury paying down bills.
MR. STERNLIGHT. I think it has a lot to do with that,
Governor Johnson. As you say, the Treasury has been paying down bills
since early this year. There really just has been a technical
shortage of bills at the same time that there has been some extra

4/29/87

demand in the market because of some of those proceeds of foreign
exchange intervention, either by those countries who intervened by
themselves in the market or, in some cases, executed transactions over
our Desk. We have been a bit of a counterbalance to that because some
that we normally would have done for System account reserve provision
purposes might well have gone in the bill market. We did more than
usual in the coupon market; we've been there three times in the last
four weeks for a total of something like a little over $6 billion.
SPEAKER(?).

In coupons?

MR. STERNLIGHT.
MR. JOHNSON.

In coupons, yes sir.

Have they announced the refunding package

today?
MR. STERNLIGHT.
MR. JOHNSON.

Have they cut back the long bond or not?

MR. STERNLIGHT.
MR. JOHNSON.

They'll be announcing their refunding today.

Well, they'll announce it later.

Okay.

MR. STERNLIGHT.
I think the market doesn't really expect
much of a change on that score.
MS. SEGER.

What did the PSA recommend to them?

MR. STERNLIGHT. Pretty much a carbon copy of what was done
in February, notwithstanding the question about whether foreign
participation would be there in the same degree as before.
MS. SEGER.
since last October?
it?

know.

What is the increase in the federal funds rate
It's approaching a full percentage point, isn't

MR. STERNLIGHT.
It must be around 3/4ths to 7/8ths;
Since last October, you say?
MS. SEGER.

Yes.

MR. STERNLIGHT.

I don't

Isn't that when it started picking up?
Yes.

MR. KOHN. It averaged 5.85 last October and it moved up 3/4
of a point or a little more--7/8ths.
MR. GUFFEY. Just a perspective question, Mr. Chairman: If
indeed, for whatever reason, the dollar begins to firm or to settle at
its current level, would that suggest that we move to or near the $300
million level?
CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. I think it might at some point, depending
on what other things happen.
I would suspect if that happened that
rates, in the first instance, would kind of move down by themselves
for a while. But we would have to look at the other things--the
monetary aggregates, the business situation, inflation. One question
that I suppose enters into the approach now, as it always does, is the

4/29/87

question of whether we think the inflationary outlook has worsened in
these past few months. That seems to be the view in the market, and
it's not unrelated to the exchange rate situation because the
inflationary expectations are given in part by the exchange rate
moves. But I do think there has been some greater pessimism in the
market about inflation, which has helped account for the long-term
bond market performance, anyway.
MR. HELLER. This is Bob Heller. We have discussed financial
markets a lot, and I certainly agree with the summary that we probably
needn't do much or shouldn't do much. But I think we also have to
keep in mind the real side of the economy. If you look at the last
quarterly numbers: business fixed investment is still going down by
12.8 percent; residential structures are down 7 percent; and consumer
spending is down 0.4 percent. If you look at the inflation
indicators, there isn't much change on the wage front; everything
seems to continue to be rather well behaved compared to a year ago-somewhere between 3 and 4 percent increases and the union side is much
better behaved. If you look at commodity prices, they're essentially
going sideways with the exception of oil and the precious metals;
certainly, the experimental index is moving sideways. And the
aggregates, I guess, are continuing to come in at the bottom of their
ranges--there not being a range for M1, which might show a big boost.
My view is actually very strongly that Germany and Japan
[unintelligible] should be expanding faster and not doing something to
contract. So, doing nothing is certainly agreeable to me.
CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. Well, we will have a lot to discuss in
three weeks, I guess. Are there any other comments? If not, I will
bid you adieu. No, adieu is too much. Au revoir.
MR. HELLER.

Sayonara.
END OF SESSION