The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee announced this week (April 27, 2011) that it will keep interest rates at their current low levels for the foreseeable future, at least until summer, in wake of a slightly disappointing first-quarter estimate in growth of the gross domestic product. The GDP rose at a 1.8 percent annual pace in the first quarter after a 3.1 percent rate of expansion in the last three months of 2010, the Commerce Department reported.

A poll just conducted by the news organization Reuters shows that most U.S. primary dealers expect the Fed to keep interest rates near zero until the end of the year. (more…)