1  Every April and October, the Bank releases its Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices (the Outlook Report), and in the intervening January and July makes an interim assessment of the outlook laid out in the report. The Policy Board members’ forecasts for real GDP are presented as reference figures in the respective months.
This expansion reflects a financial system that has changed in important ways since 1994, when the Congress first adopted concentration limits for banks and bank holding companies. The act also imposes new restrictions on the capital markets activities of banking firms – restrictions that will disproportionately affect the structure and profitability of the largest banking firms.