Is U.S. Fed Finished With Rate Cuts?

ByJohn S. McClenahen The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the U.S. Federal Reserve System's policy-making group, has eight meetings scheduled for 2003, beginning with a two-day confab on Jan. 28-29. At each of them, Chairman Alan Greenspan and his FOMC colleagues will leave the influential federal funds rate unchanged at 1.25%, predicts Gerald D. Cohen, a senior economist at Merrill Lynch & Co., New York. "Although the risks in the economy are clearly to the downside [toward even greater weakness], we agree with the Fed that activity will hold up in the months ahead," says Cohen.