US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will break nearly 100 years of tradition at the central bank next month when he begins talking to the media after policy meetings.
Bernanke will kick off a program of four-times-a-year news conferences on April 27 following a regularly scheduled two-day Fed meeting on monetary policy, the central bank said on Thursday. It will be the first regularly scheduled briefing by a Fed chairman in the central bank’s history.
The decision to hold news conference is the latest in a series of steps the Fed has taken under Bernanke to increase transparency.
The announcement brings the US central bank, which was founded in 1913, into line with its peers from the other G7 rich nations. With reams of market commentary devoted to parsing the Fed’s post-meeting statements, the central bank hopes the briefings will give it an opportunity to convey more nuance on policy than its brief statements can.
However, the move is not without risks. With investors hanging on every word of the Fed chairman, any communications missteps could roil financial markets. “While it does give Bernanke an opportunity to clarify any market misinterpretation of the policy statement, it also opens the door to misinterpretation of what he says,” said Kevin Flanagan, chief fixed-income strategist at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
The Fed said Bernanke would hold a briefing after each policy meeting at which officials provide their quarterly economic forecasts, which fall in June and November this year.
“The introduction of regular press briefings is intended to further enhance the clarity and timeliness of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy communication,” the central bank said.
Since the financial crisis, Bernanke has stepped up efforts to explain the central bank’s actions to the public, giving two extensive television interviews and delivering speeches at which reporters have been able to ask questions.
The Fed’s vice chairperson Janet Yellen has led a subcommittee since November to examine the central bank’s communications practices.
The Fed said on Thursday it would continue to review its policies “in the interest of ensuring accountability and increasing public understanding.”
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday reported record sales for the first quarter, which analysts attributed to solid demand for emerging technologies. Consolidated revenue totaled NT$592.64 billion (US$18.51 billion) in the January-to-March period, up 16.5 percent from a year earlier, but down 5.26 percent from the previous quarter, TSMC said in a statement. The first-quarter revenue beat analysts’ average projection of NT$579.5 billion, Bloomberg News reported. That performance lends weight to expectations that the world’s most valuable chipmaker would return to solid growth this year after weathering a post-COVID-19-pandemic cratering of smartphone and computer sales. TSMC is budgeting
HUALIEN BRANCH: The company had been planning to rebuild the hotel before it was damaged in the quake and vowed to give affected employees the option to transfer The owner of Chateau de Chine Hualien (花蓮翰品酒店) is planning to lay off 86 workers after shutting down the hotel due to damage it sustained in a powerful earthquake on Wednesday last week, the Ministry of Labor said yesterday. The hotel has submitted a layoff report to the Hualien County Government and expects to let 69 workers go this month and 17 next month, the ministry said. LDC Hotels & Resorts Group (雲朗觀光集團), the owner of Chateau de Chine Hualien, confirmed the layoff plan in a statement yesterday. LDC said the hotel has been closed since Wednesday last week when the temblor occurred
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last