31.01.201909:15 Forex Analysis & Reviews: USD: The Federal Reserve has completely changed the nature of its statements and forecasts for this year.

The US dollar fell against a number of world currencies yesterday after the Federal Reserve revised its monetary policy, making a number of significant changes in its statement.

According to the data, the Fed left the range of interest rates on federal funds unchanged between 2.25% and 2.50%. The Fed also left the discount rate at 3.00%. This decision was taken by the Open Market Operations Committee with a vote of 10 to 0.

It is clear from the statements that now the Fed will be patient in making decisions about interest rates in the future, and this patience is explained by global economic and financial factors, as well as restrained inflationary pressure.

It should be noted that the Fed has removed from its statement the prospect of further gradual rate increases, saying it is ready to correct the process of normalizing the balance in the light of economic and financial events.

The speech by the Federal Reserve Chairman put even more pressure on the US dollar.

Jerome Powell said that although the US economy is in good shape, the growth of some other major economies has slowed, which could affect overall global GDP growth.

Powell expects the economy to grow at a slower, but still steady pace, but current financial conditions have become less favorable for economic growth.

With regard to interest rates, then, according to the Fed chairman, you must take a patient and wait-and-see attitude. In this regard, the process of reducing the balance of the Fed will end earlier with a higher volume of assets, which also indicates a lack of interest in the committee to further increase interest rates this year.

The next change in interest rates will depend entirely on the economic data, and the length of the patience period is entirely related to the incoming economic data.

If at the end of last year, the Fed chairman clearly stated at least two interest rate increases this year, then already during yesterday's meeting, it became clear that the committee could completely refuse to increase, and it will depend entirely on macroeconomic statistics and inflation.

Yesterday, data on the number of jobs in the US private sector was also released, which increased in January 2019.

According to the Automatic Data Processing Inc. report. and Moody's Analytics, the number of jobs increased by 213,000, while economists had forecast an increase in the number of jobs in the private sector by 183,000.

The number of signed contracts for the sale of housing in December decreased due to high loans and an expensive market. According to the National Association of Realtors, the index of signed contracts on the sale of housing in the secondary market in December decreased by 2.2% compared with the previous month and amounted to 99.0 points. Economists had expected the index to show a 0.5% increase in December.