The announcement should enable market participants to get a more accurate view of our intentions sooner and build them into financial market conditions, which then feed back on spending. This transparency, together with the gradual trajectory of policy actions, should help us to get a better and more timely fix on the effects of our actions than in the past.
No doubt, the heightened level of uncertainty, along with the distortions to incoming data from hurricane effects, will complicate the conduct of policy. Although it will be more difficult, we still should be able to discern underlying developments in the important sectors I discussed--housing markets, consumer purchases, business investment, costs and prices.