Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell issued a statement referring to possible policy action in the face of the worsening epidemic, a day after Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida withdrew $1 million to $5 million from a bond fund and traded equity funds, according to financial disclosures in 2020.
The filing form submitted to the Government Ethics Office describes the Clarida transaction, showing that the money was transferred from a Pimco bond fund on February 27, 2020 and purchased the Pimco StocksPlus fund and iShares Asustek MSCI U.S. Minimum volatility Factor ETF on the same day in similar dollars. He listed five deals for the year.
At 2:30 the next day, Friday, February 28, Powell took the unusual step of issuing a statement saying the outbreak posed a changing risk to economic activity. In the same statement, Mr Powell said the Fed was "closely monitoring developments and their impact on the economic outlook".
Cut interest rates urgently
After the emergency meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve announced a 0.5 percent cut in interest rates on March 3 of that year.
"Vice Chairman Clarida's 2020 financial disclosure shows that the transaction represents a pre-planned rebalancing of his account," said a Fed spokesman who spoke on behalf of the Fed vice chairman. The deal took place before he participated in the review of the Fed's response to the COVID-19 epidemic, not during a quiet period. The selected fund was selected with the prior approval of the ethics officer of the Commission. "