- Keep open the possibility of altering both its journey and destination -- that is the pace of balance-sheet reduction over time, and the final equilibrium number.
With better technicals now helping markets, though not as much as in 2017, this approach should maintain a sense of a responsive policy underpinning for now, thereby limiting the scope for self-inflicted wounds. However, it won’t sustainably remove the longer-term policy dilemma facing systemically important central banks. For that, the Fed -- and even more so the European Central Bank -- needs the help of politicians to open up the way for more pro-growth policies on the part of other economic-policy-making agencies.