Federal Reserve officials last month saw it taking some time before the conditions would be met for scaling back their massive asset-purchase campaign.

“Participants noted that it would likely be some time until substantial further progress toward the Committee’s maximum-employment and price-stability goals would be realized,” according to minutes from the March 16-17 Federal Open Market Committee meeting published Wednesday.

“A number of participants highlighted the importance of the Committee clearly communicating its assessment of progress toward its longer-run goals well in advance of the time when it could be judged substantial enough to warrant a change in the pace of asset purchases.” (Bloomberg - Continue Reading)

Inflation was a first-quarter problem. Investors are now fretting over the potential tax bill companies could face as part of President Joe Biden’s proposed $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan.

Wall Street suspected that tax hikes were looming even before Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen unveiled a proposed new corporate-tax code on Wednesday to pay for parts of the bill -- a change that likely would dent profits. An RBC Capital Markets survey conducted at the end of March showed 53% of investors say the policy backdrop over the next four years is somewhat negative or very negative, compared with just 21% in December.

“Taxes are top of mind for U.S. equity investors, with tax policy coming in at No. 2 on the list of things they are losing sleep over, behind monetary policy but ahead of inflation,” wrote RBC’s head of U.S. equity strategy Lori Calvasina in a note Tuesday. “The policy backdrop for stocks under Biden now skews towards the pessimists.” (Bloomberg - Continue Reading)