Fed Likely To Hold Interest Rates Near Zero Today: WSJ

Federal Reserve officials could keep the interest rates unchanged in the monetary policy meeting that concludes today, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Fed has acknowledged recent signs of economic weakness and kept the short-term interest rates near zero. It had launched a bond-purchase program of $120 billion a month and decided to keep stimulative measures in place until lower unemployment, and 2% inflation goals are achieved.
Fed officials also expect inflation to pick up in the short-term but are not backing on it to last.
The resurgence of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. led to steeper lockdown measures, which led to rising unemployment benefits claims and falling retails sales since November.
Fed claims that the setback is temporary, and the economy is likely to bounce back later in 2021 with mass vaccine roll-out. Congress and the White House approved $900 billion in new spending measures in December, and the Biden administration has proposed $1.9 trillion in additional measures, including sending $1,400 checks.
The Ten-year Treasury rate is down by 1.7 bps to 1.023% on the last check, just two weeks after clocking a high of 1.187% since April 2020.
With low interest rates, the mortgage demand showed a dip in the last week, but the average home buyer loan size hit a record high of $395,200, CNBC reports.