May 16 2014
Rate Range Projection by Bank
Next week 101.00- 102.00
Next 3 months 100.00 - 105.00
The demand for Bernanke's time shows that many of Wall Street's highest-profile brokers and investors see him as holding rare insight on how the Fed will react in the months and years ahead - and are prepared to pay big bucks to get private access to those views. At least one guest left a New York restaurant with the impression Bernanke, 60, does not expect the federal funds rate, the Fed's main benchmark interest rate, to rise back to its long-term average of around 4 percent in Bernanke's lifetime, one source who had spoken to the guest said.
The accounts of the discussions come from attendees as well as those who heard second-hand what was said at the dinners, where hedge fund managers and others willing to foot the roughly $250,000 bill for each event asked the former Fed chairman questions in a free-flowing round-table fashion over recent weeks. Bernanke has no constraints on expressing his views in public or private, providing he does not talk about confidential Fed matters. He declined to comment on any of his remarks at the private events.
Under his direction, the Fed took the fed funds rate, its key policy lever, to near zero in late 2008 as the financial crisis raged. The central bank has held it there ever since in a bid to stimulate a stronger rebound in the world's largest economy. Another dinner guest was moved when Bernanke said the Fed aims to hit its 2 percent inflation target at all times, and that it is not necessarily a ceiling."Shocking when he said this," the guest scribbled in his notes. "Is that really true?" he scribbled at another point, according to the notes reviewed by Reuters.
In a series of quarter-million-dollar dinners with wealthy private investors, Ben Bernanke has been clearer than he ever was as chairman of the Federal Reserve on his expectations that easy-money policies and below-normal interest rates are here for a long time to come, according to some of those in attendance. Bernanke, who retired from the U.S. central bank in January, has predicted the Fed will only very slowly move to raise rates, and probably do so later than many forecast because the labor market still has a lot more room to recover from the financial crisis and recession.
The sources requested anonymity because the dinners were private and they were not authorized to discuss the material publicly. The Washington Speakers Bureau, which organizes the events and advertises the former chairman's availability on its website, did not return call.
