Full text of U.S. Financial Data : November 16, 2000

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November 16, 2000

USFinancialData
THE WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS:
■ Following its November 15 meeting, the Federal Open Market
Committee voted to keep its federal funds rate target at 6.5
percent. The Committee then issued the following statement:
The utilization of the pool of available workers remains at an
unusually high level, and the increase in energy prices, though
having limited effect on core measures of prices to date, still
harbors the possibility of raising inflation expectations. The
Committee, accordingly, continues to see a risk of heightened
inflation pressures. However, softening in business and household
demand and tightening conditions in financial markets over
recent months suggest that the economy could expand for a time
at a pace below the productivity-enhanced rate of growth of its
potential to produce. Nonetheless, to date the easing of demand
pressures has not been sufficient to warrant a change in the
Committee's judgment that against the background of its long-run
goals of price stability and sustainable economic growth and
of the information currently available, the risks continue to be
weighted mainly toward conditions that may generate heightened
inflation pressures in the foreseeable future.
■ After rising 0.5 percent, or 6.4 percent at an annual rate, in
September, the consumer price index advanced at a 2.1 percent
rate in October.
United States Financial Data will not be published
next week because of the Thanksgiving Holiday.
All data are seasonally adjusted unless otherwise indicated.
U.S. Financial Data is published weekly by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of
St. Louis. For more information on data, please call (314) 444-8590. To be added to the mailing
list, please call (314) 444-8808 or (314) 444-8809.
Information in this publication is also included in the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) electronic
bulletin board at (314) 621-1824 or internet World Wide Web server at www.stls.frb.org/fred.