Yesterday, FOMC announced that they are not making any changes to the interest rate. Later last year, they made an upward move after almost a decade.
They also changed their stance on frequency of changing the interest rate. Earlier they indicated that they would change interest rate 4 times in 2016, but it was not well received in the market. Now they have backed-off to resonate with their counterparts. While it’s not as exciting, this will bring stability to the economy. Stable interest rates are boring but it is good in the long run. Feds assurity about the stable interest rate will bring confidence to investors so they can plan and forecast better. Low interest rate acts like a catalyst to economy by encouraging people to rotate the money and invest rather than just leaving it in fixed deposit.
The new stanceis similar to what European Central Bank ( ECB) and Bank of Japan are taking to boost their economy. This however would affect the USD strength against other currencies. People will prefer to invest in alternative assets, making USD less in demand as an asset class. There are both pros and cons of weaker currency, but overall there are always advantages for a stable currency. So if you are an importer, you should be unhappy and if you are an exporter you should be happy. Historically, Fed movements can be well predicted in advance, which is a good indication of them being more realistic with the economic condition. In near future, we should be assure that interest rates are going to be stable and FOMC meetings would have no exciting news to share.