Mohamed A. El-Erian , Columnist

Is the Fed Ready to Change Course?

The central bank is shifting from following markets to being more willing to lead them.

May 3, 2017 at 6:00 AM UTC

Mohamed A. El-Erian is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former chief executive officer of Pimco, he is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge; chief economic adviser at Allianz SE; and chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He is author of “The Only Game in Town.”

In charge.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee is meeting this week in the context of a weaker data patch in which “hard” measures of economic activity continue to lag better sentiment indicators. As a result, the central bank is widely expected by markets to maintain an unchanged policy stance when the two-day meeting concludes on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, this will be an interesting test of the view, which I and some others have espoused, that the Fed is in the process of shifting operating regimes -- from following markets to being more willing to lead them.