Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will announce Wednesday that the central bank will begin raising interest rates this month – in an attempt to curb rising inflation expected to further increase as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In prepared testimony to a congressional committee, Powell says the Fed will “need to be nimble” in responding to unexpected changes resulting from the invasion and the resulting sanctions, according to the Associated Press.
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There is good news for people looking to sell a home in Wisconsin, but the news is not so great for people looking to buy.
The Wisconsin Realtors Association released its latest report on home sales on Monday.
The numbers show fewer homes for sale and fewer homes sold in January of this year, compared to January 2021.
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Who among us hasn’t made $1.5 million for sitting on an advisory board for two years? Not you? Come to think of it, me neither. Such money comes only to the well connected.
And “connected” is a good word to use in regard to Sarah Bloom Raskin, nominated last month by President Joe Biden to be Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve System. Previously, from 2010 to 2014, she served as a Governor of the Fed, and then, from 2014 to 2017, she worked as Barack Obama’s Deputy Secretary of the Treasury.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Fox contributor and finance Wall Street expert Liz Peek to the newsmakers line to weigh in on the economic outlook for America.
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President Joe Biden’s nominee to regulate the banking industry has previously expressed support for economic reparations to black Americans, Fox Business reported Monday.
Lisa Cook, a professor of international relations and economics at Michigan State University, has an extensive history of supporting “race-specific” financial compensation “because the injury was race-specific,” Fox reported. Cook was nominated on Jan. 14 to serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
“Everybody benefited from slavery. Everybody. So, I think that we absolutely need some sort of reckoning with that,” said Cook on the EconTalk podcast in September 2020. “One thing I do support is H.R. 40 … I think that’s absolutely what needs to be done,” said Cook in a March 2021 talk at Berkeley Haas, referencing a bill that would establish a commission to study and develop reparation proposals.
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With both volatile markets and significant inflation in the mix, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday indicated that it may soon raise interest rates for the first time in more than three years.
“With inflation well above 2 percent and a strong labor market, the committee expects it will soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate,” the body said n a highly anticipated statement following its meeting.
The Federal Open Market Committee added that the central bank’s monthly bond-buying will proceed at just $30 billion in February, signaling that the program could come to an end in March as the interest rate increases.
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President Joe Biden’s latest high-profile Fed nominee is in danger of being struck down in the Senate because she is widely seen by her peers as a left-wing activist rather than a serious monetary economist, several economists told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Biden appointed Lisa Cook, a professor of international relations and economics at Michigan State University and former Obama White House staffer, on Jan. 13 to serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, which regulates the banking industry.
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The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.5% in December, bringing the key inflation indicator’s year-over-year increase to 7%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.
The CPI soared to 7% on a year-over-year basis in December, the highest level in almost four decades, the BLS reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal projected the index would soar past 7.1% in December.
“There’s still a lot of scarcity in the economy. Consumers and businesses are in great financial shape, and they’re willing to pay up for more goods, more services and more labor,” Sarah House, director, and senior economist at Wells Fargo, told the WSJ.
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged Tuesday that high inflation is indeed a serious threat to the U.S. central bank’s goal of helping to get U.S. employees back to work.
He also said the Fed will raise rates higher than initially planned if needed to slow rising prices, according to the Associated Press.
“If we have to raise interest rates more over time, we will,” Powell told the Senate Banking Committee, which is considering his nomination for a second four-year term, the wire service also reports. “High inflation is a severe threat to the achievement of maximum employment.”
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The Nasdaq Composite, a technology-heavy index of publicly-traded companies, is set to underperform the S&P 500 for the first time since 2016, according to CNBC.
The S&P 500, a stock market index consisting of the 500 largest publicly-traded companies in the U.S., climbed 28% in 2021 as of Monday, while the Nasdaq was up 23% on a year-over-year basis, according to CNBC. The S&P 500 previously beat the Nasdaq in 2016 and 2011.
The Nasdaq had a strong start to 2021, almost doubling the S&P 500 in February, CNBC reported. Trading slowed after the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccines, which boosted sentiment among investors that the pandemic was ending, reducing demand for remote work technology and other tech-focused goods.
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The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.9% in November, bringing the key inflation indicator’s year-over-year increase to 6.8%, the highest figure in four decades.
The CPI’s increase is the largest increase in four decades, up from October’s 6.2% according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report released Friday morning. Experts surveyed by CNBC projected inflation would increase 0.7% in November, translating to a 6.7% gain on a year-over-year basis.
“These are frighteningly high inflation numbers, the likes of which we haven’t seen for decades,” Allen Sinai, chief global economist and strategist at Decision Economics, Inc., told The Wall Street Journal.
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A survey released Monday found that business experts expect prices and inflation to rise at elevated levels for years to come.
The National Association for Business Economics released the results of a survey of 48 economic experts who downgraded their growth predictions and projected elevated inflation through the second half of 2023, if not later.
“NABE Outlook survey panelists have ramped up their expectations for inflation significantly since September,” said NABE Vice President Julia Coronado, founder and president, MacroPolicy Perspectives LLC. “The core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy costs, is now expected to rise 6.0% from the fourth quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to the September forecast of a 5.1% increase over the same period.”
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The U.S. economy added 210,000 jobs in November, marking nearly the lowest number of jobs created in a month since President Joe Biden took office in January.
November’s jobs report was well below economists’ estimate of 573,000, according to CNBC. Additionally, unemployment fell to 4.2% from October’s 4.6% figure, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The U.S. economy, still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic but now subject to uncertainty related to the Omicron coronavirus variant, appeared to slow in momentum in November, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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The Federal Reserve concluded that weather disasters are “not very” bad for financial institutions despite the Biden administration’s warnings that climate change is an “emerging” threat to banks.
“We find that weather disasters over the last quarter century had insignificant or small effects on U.S. banks’ performance,” the report, published in November by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, stated. “This stability seems endogenous rather than a mere reflection of federal aid.”
The report added that extreme climate events “actually boosts profits” for larger banks because of increased loan demand. In addition, smaller banks are adept at avoiding mortgage lending in flood prone areas using local knowledge of the region they are based.
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President Joe Biden will renominate Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to a second term leading the central bank.
The president, who was elected as a moderate, has faced pushback on Powell, who progressives feel is not tough enough on bank regulations or climate change policy.
Also in contention for the top job was Lael Brainard, who Biden will nominate to become the vice chair of the central bank’s board of governors.
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Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida said he expects the recent spike in inflation to dissipate as supply and demand imbalances ease and that future price increases in 2022 would cause problems for the central bank.
“I do continue to judge that these imbalances are likely to dissipate over time as the labor market and global supply chains eventually adjust and, importantly, do so without putting persistent upward pressure on price inflation and wage gains adjusted for productivity,” Clarida said in remarks prepared for delivery on Monday.
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The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it would begin scaling back its monthly bond purchases in November, marking the first step towards ending its pandemic stimulus as inflation surges.
The scaling of bond purchases, more commonly known as tapering, will start “later this month,” the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) said in a statement. The Federal Reserve will reduce its purchases by $15 billion each month — $10 billion less in Treasury bonds and $5 billion less in mortgage-backed securities — from the current $120 billion figure.
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The Labor Department’s official unemployment rate—the most well-known gauge of the labor market’s health—counts as unemployed only those who aren’t working but are actively seeking a job.
Yet there is very little that we can infer from the jobless rate about the health of the economy. The unavoidable conclusion is that the only reason investors follow the calculation is because both Washington’s politicians and the Federal Reserve are expected to react to it.
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The Federal Reserve said in September that it would begin taking steps to combat growing inflation in the U.S. economy, according to notes from a Sept. 21 and Sept. 22 Open Market Committee meeting first obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
The Federal Reserve will be scaling back its $120 billion monthly purchases of U.S. Treasury and mortgage securities due to the growing surge in inflation and strong consumer spending leading to heightened demand, according to minutes from a September meeting released Wednesday by the WSJ. The reduction in spending, commonly referred to as tapering, will begin in mid-November, and experts believe it could end by June, according to the meeting notes.
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Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard believes financial regulators should tell banks how to tackle climate change as a way to monitor threats to the overall financial system, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Brainard outlined in a speech how the central bank should prepare for climate change events like flooding and wildfires, which she thinks could deliver a shock to the markets and economy.
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A key economic index used by the Federal Reserve to measure inflation surged to another 30-year high in August as Americans continued to experience sticker shock.
The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index increased 4.3% over the 12-month period ending in August, according to a Department of Commerce report published Friday. The figure represented the index’s highest increase since January 1991 when it surged at an annual rate of 4.5%, government data showed.
Minus energy and food prices, which are notoriously more volatile than other sectors, the PCE index increased at an annual rate of 3.6% in August, the Commerce Department reported. That is also the highest increase in more than 30 years.
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Prominent economic historian Niall Ferguson said current inflation could be in line with where it was in the 1960s during the period that preceded a decade of high consumer prices, CNBC reported.
“What is interesting about disasters is that one can lead to another,” Ferguson said in a Friday interview with CNBC. “You can go from a public health disaster to a fiscal, monetary and potentially inflationary disaster.”
During the 1960s, inflation stayed low before shooting up in the 1970s, according to government economic data. Consumer prices ultimately peaked in 1980 before rapidly declining.
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U.S. Representative Nikema Williams (D-GA-05) reportedly said this week that the Federal Reserve must deliver “equity, diversity, and inclusion” to the banking and housing industries while also eliminating what she said was a “racial wealth disparity.” Williams serves on the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.
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Minorities have increased their mobility and financial standing over the last decade, according to federal data that challenges some of the narratives of the so-called Critical Race Theory spreading through schools and media.
While the Federal Reserve reports that “the typical white family has eight times the wealth of the typical black family and five times the wealth of the typical Hispanic family” it also acknowledges that African-American and Hispanic families have made significant gains.
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A consumer price measurement used by the Federal Reserve to track inflation spiked again in June and hit its highest level since 1991, government data showed.
The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index increased 4% over the 12 months between July 2020 and June, according to a Bureau of Economic Analysis report released Friday. Excluding volatile energy and food prices, the index spiked 3.5% in that same 12-month period.
The index increased 0.5% in June, in line with economists’ forecasts, CNBC reported.
“Inflation has increased notably and will likely remain elevated in coming months before moderating,” Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell said during a press conference this week. “As the economy continues to reopen and spending rebounds, we are seeing upward pressure on prices, particularly because supply bottlenecks in some sectors have limited how quickly production can respond in the near term.”
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell tried to calm lawmakers’ fears about rising inflation but also said it would probably remain elevated for months to come.
Testifying before Congress this week, Powell said the Federal Reserve was willing to step in to address the situation, but that inflation should level out next year.
“As always, in assessing the appropriate stance of monetary policy, we will continue to monitor the implications of incoming information for the economic outlook and would be prepared to adjust the stance of monetary policy as appropriate if we saw signs that the path of inflation or longer-term inflation expectations were moving materially and persistently beyond levels consistent with our goal,” Powell said in his prepared testimony.
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Republican-led states and Vermont reported the lowest unemployment rates in April, according to a new report by the U.S. Commerce Department. States led by Democratic governors recorded the highest jobless rates, according to the report.
Unemployment rates were lower in April in 12 states and the District of Columbia and stable in 38 states, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
States with the highest unemployment rates in April were Hawaii (8.5%), California (8.3%), New Mexico and New York (both at 8.2%), and Connecticut (8.1%). All five states with the highest unemployment are run by Democratic trifectas, meaning Democrats control the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature.
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Senate Banking Committee Republicans have expanded an investigation into regional Federal Reserve banks over their alleged “woke mission creep.”
Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee sent letters to regional Federal Reserve banks in Minneapolis, Boston and Atlanta demanding a briefing with leaders and documents related to a recent “Racism and the Economy” initiative, GOP staffers said during a press briefing Monday morning. Engaging in political advocacy is out of the Fed’s purview, the letters said.
“Of course, racism is abhorrent and has no place in our society…. I recognize the interest in studying economic disparities along demographic lines, such as race and gender,” Banking Committee Ranking Member Pat Toomey wrote in the letters sent Sunday.
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Top American economist Larry Summers is sounding the alarm on rising U.S. inflation, saying that it is ticking up quicker than he originally expected.
Inflation is increasingly a more concerning and larger threat as consumer prices continue to rise, former National Economic Council Director and Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told Axios on Monday. He also criticized the Federal Reserve’s policies, suggesting that its decision to keep interest rates low could harm the economy.
“Data are pointing more towards higher inflation than I expected, and sooner,” Summers told Axios. “With more inflation signs sooner than I would have expected.”
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U.S. Rep. Dr. Mark Green wants the governing board of the Federal Reserve to resume meeting in public to comply with the Sunshine Act.
The CARES Act has allowed the board of governors to meet in secret for the most part, Green said. So, he and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI-02) this week introduced the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act, HR 8007, to make the board transparent once again.
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The Federal Reserve is promising to use its “full range of tools” to pull the country out of a recession brought on by a global pandemic, signaling that it would keep interest rates low through 2022.
In its semi-annual monetary policy report to Congress, the central bank said Friday that the COVID-19 outbreak was causing “tremendous human and economic hardship across the United States and around the world.”
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Another 5.2 million Americans filed for initial unemployment claims last week, bringing the total number of jobs lost to the Chinese coronavirus and related government closures to anywhere from 21.8 million to 24.8 million jobs lost in about one month, and when added to the 5.8 million who were already jobless, produces an effective unemployment rate of 16.7 to 18.5 percent.
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If you own stocks, you’re probably searching for explanations about the sudden bear market. The answers you find likely start with an event: what the Fed does, what President Trump does, or what the coronavirus does.
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President Donald Trump praised the Federal Reserve for cutting the federal funds rate to a range of 0 percent to 0.25 percent, and restarting quantitative easing with $500 billion of U.S. treasuries purchases and $200 billion of mortgage purchases in response to the Chinese coronavirus global pandemic.
“It makes me very happy and I want to congratulate the Federal Reserve,” he said. “That’s a big step and I’m very happy they did it.” Trump has been hounding the Fed for years to cut interest rates to make the dollar more competitive against trading partners’ currencies including the yuan, euro and peso. Now he gets his wish.
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The coronavirus death toll in the United States hit nine on Tuesday, even as more areas around the world report infections.
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In his latest weekly column, our liberty-loving friend former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul says while so many people have been blaming the Russians for election meddling, we should look right here at home — at the Federal Reserve.
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The Federal Reserve cut interest rates on Wednesday for the first time since 2008, citing concerns about the global economy and muted U.S. inflation, and signaled a readiness to lower borrowing costs further if needed.
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by Robert Romano Did anyone notice the Fed inverted the yield curve? On May 23, the 10-year Treasury dipped below the federal funds rate, the benchmark interest rate set by the Federal Reserve that it currently has set for a range of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent, and has stayed there since. As of June 4, the effective federal funds rate was 2.38 percent, while the 10-year is at 2.13 percent. There were also brief inversions on March 28 and May 15, but they immediately came back into positive territory. Unlike other inverted interest rates, which often foretell a recession in not so distant future, this is one the central bank actually has control over since it sets its own rate. But, there’s no need to panic. The last time those two rates briefly inverted and then stayed inverted, beginning in late March 2006, a recession did not follow until December 2007. It took 21 months. Sometimes it takes even longer than that. The time before that, the two rates briefly inverted in Sept. 1995, but the next recession did not begin until March 2001, almost six years. Another brief inversion occurred in Dec. 1985, but the next recession…
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by George Rasley In late March, and partly at the urging of Larry Kudlow, Director of President Trump’s National Economic Council, the President announced his intention to nominate our good friend Stephen Moore to one of the two open seats on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Conservatives, who believe in and support the Trump pro-growth economic agenda, were thrilled when the President announced Moore’s name – establishment “Wall Street before Main Street” types, not so much. The announcement prompted protests from economists across the ideological spectrum, reported Politico’s Ben Schreckinger, with George W. Bush’s top economist, Harvard’s Gregory Mankiw, saying Moore lacked the “intellectual gravitas” for the job and warning that appointing Moore, a think-tanker with no Ph.D., would politicize the Fed. Like appointing Janet Yellen to maintain near negative interest rates to prop-up Obama wasn’t political? To claim that Moore, who has served as top economist at the Heritage Foundation and a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, lacks intellectual gravitas is about the crassest exhibition of elitism we’ve seen in a long time and comes from the same place that spawned the Kevin D. Williamson article we dismembered back in 2016. And, as Mr.…
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by Whitney Tipton Several GOP senators expressed concern Tuesday over Trump’s selection of Herman Cain for the Federal Reserve Board, casting doubt that the former GOP presidential candidate will be formally nominated. Two Republicans raising issues, Republican North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer and Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, are members of the Banking Committee, whose nomination hearing would be a critical step prior to full Senate chamber consideration, should Cain be formally named. “It’s hard for me to imagine he’d be confirmed,” said Cramer in comments made to reporters after a closed-door Senate GOP meeting, according to The Wall Street Journal. Cramer has questioned Cain’s fitness because of sexual harassment allegations made against him. “That’s a very big problem for me—I think for a lot of people, and rightfully so.” Scott, another Banking Committee member, downplayed the harassment issue, “That’s a part of what I need to look at.” Scott added that Cain was “obviously qualified” for the position because of his experience on the Kansas City Fed and that the “question is what is the entire portfolio of his activities and interests and challenges,” The WSJ reported. Cain, also a former pizza chain CEO and unsuccessful U.S.…
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U.S. President Donald Trump plans to nominate former pizza chain executive and Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board, where he will help set interest rates for the world’s biggest economy. “I have recommended him highly for the Fed,” Trump said in a press conference Thursday. “I’ve told my folks that’s the man.” Trump has been a vocal and strident critic of the Fed’s rate hikes under Jerome Powell, whom the president picked two years ago to chair the U.S. central bank. Trump’s other Fed appointees have also supported the Powell Fed’s rate hikes, which the president has said hurt the economy. This year the Fed has put rate hikes on hold, citing a slowing economy and risks from overseas. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to rail against the Fed, even as he has said he will nominate conservative commentator Stephen Moore, a proponent of rate cuts, for a second vacant seat on the Fed Board. Asked if he is sending a signal to the Fed with the pair of nominations, Trump said: “None whatsoever. He’s a highly respected man. He’s a friend of mine. He’s somebody that gets it, and I hope everything goes…
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by Robert Romano Recession warning lights are flashing predictably after the Federal Reserve has finally ended quantitative easing – it’s now dumping $50 billion of government and mortgage bonds a month – and short-term interest rates have risen. The 10-year-3-month treasuries spread inverted on March 22, and the 10-year-2-year and the 10-year-federal-funds-rate do not appear to be far behind from inverting. When interest rates invert, it means the interest rate on short-term bonds is higher than the rate of return for long-term bonds, meaning there is slightly more demand for the long-term bonds, which are viewed as a relatively safer investment. So, how did we get here? The short answer is that since the Fed began dumping bonds back on the market – it has shed $458 billion since Sept. 2017 – short-term interest rates have been steadily rising. This usually happens anyway as the business cycle comes to a close. But what it tells you is that this particular business cycle was prolonged – by a lot – with the Fed artificially keeping short-term interest rates low, not by manipulating the benchmark federal funds rate, but through quantitative easing and then refinancing a vast horde of U.S. treasuries. The U.S. is long overdue for a recession – it…
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President Donald Trump said Friday that he will nominate Stephen Moore, a conservative economic analyst, to fill a vacancy on the Federal Reserve’s seven-member board. Moore, a well-known and often polarizing figure in Washington political circles, served as an economic adviser to Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. In that role, he helped draft Trump’s tax cut plan. Trump has been harshly critical of the Fed’s rate increases last year even after the central bank this week announced that it foresees no hikes this year. Moore, who has served as chief economist for the conservative Heritage Foundation, has also been critical of policy moves made by Chairman Jerome Powell, who was hand-picked by Trump to be Fed chairman. An ardent defender of tax cuts, Moore is close to Larry Kudlow, head of the White House National Economic Council. The two collaborated in shaping the tax overhaul that Trump signed into law at the end of 2017, leading to changes that largely favored tax cuts for corporations and wealthier Americans with the idea of spurring investment and faster growth. Reshaping Central Bank Trump in his first two years in office has been able to reshape the central bank. He nominated four…
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by Alexander Salter “Money is power.” We’ve all heard this aphorism many times before. Too often it’s a lazy shorthand dismissal of the finding of mainstream economics, which show that the pursuit and possession of money often entails innocuous or even beneficial consequences for society. Dr. Johnson was right after all: “There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.” But there are some contexts in which the saying is apt. An obvious case is the Federal Reserve. The Fed has a monopoly on the creation of base money, the fundamental asset underlying the banking and financial system. And over decades, with each instance of financial turbulence, the Fed has become less constrained in how, when, and why it creates base money. Since the Great Recession, the Fed has been able to bestow purchasing power, liquidity, and solvency on just about any financial organization it pleases. If that isn’t power, there’s no such thing. The Federal Reserve System was created in 1913. It was intended to be a formalization of the interbank clearing system that then existed in the National Banking System. It was not intended to be a central bank.…
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A surge in U.S. job creation and some reassuring words from the head of the U.S. central bank sent U.S. stocks soaring Friday. The Labor Department reported a net gain of 312,000 jobs in December, far more than economists predicted. The unemployment rate, however, rose slightly, to 3.9 percent. Many analysts said the rising unemployment rate was probably good news because rising wages prompted many jobless people to start looking for work. People are not counted as officially unemployed unless they have searched for work in the past four weeks. In December, the labor force expanded by a healthy 419,000 people as wages rose 3.2 percent over the past year. PNC Bank Chief Economist Gus Faucher said the data meant worries about a possible recession were probably “overblown.” Worried investors have sent stocks mostly downward in recent months in a series of drastic gains and losses driven in part by concern that the U.S. central bank might raise interest rates too quickly and choke off growth. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday that Fed officials were “listening carefully” to markets that were weighing the impact of “concerns on global growth and trade negotiations.” Dec Mullarkey of Sun Life Investment…
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by Murray N. Rothbard Our country is beset by a large number of economic myths that distort public thinking on important problems and lead us to accept unsound and dangerous government policies. Here are ten of the most dangerous of these myths and an analysis of what is wrong with them. Myth #1 Deficits are the cause of inflation; deficits have nothing to do with inflation. In recent decades we always have had federal deficits. The invariable response of the party out of power, whichever it may be, is to denounce those deficits as being the cause of our chronic inflation. And the invariable response of whatever party is in power has been to claim that deficits have nothing to do with inflation. Both opposing statements are myths. Deficits mean that the federal government is spending more than it is taking in taxes. Those deficits can be financed in two ways. If they are financed by selling Treasury bonds to the public, then the deficits are not inflationary. No new money is created; people and institutions simply draw down their bank deposits to pay for the bonds, and the Treasury spends that money. Money has simply been transferred from…
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President Donald Trump on Monday nominated a former Treasury official and a Kansas banking regulator to fill two vacant seats on the Federal Reserve Board. If confirmed by the Senate, the picks allow Trump to further mold the central bank leadership to his liking.
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Top officials of the U.S. central bank raised the key interest rate slightly Wednesday, amid strong job gains and moderate economic growth. The rate is one-quarter of a percentage point higher, putting it in a range between 1.5 and 1.75 percent.
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The Federal Reserve this week will fire the opening salvo in a series of interest rate hikes this year, hoping to get out in front of an expected pickup in inflation. The first rate hike of the year is overwhelmingly predicted by futures markets, analysts and investors alike to come Wednesday at the conclusion of the Fed’s two-day policy meeting. It also will be the first under newly-installed Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.
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The US Senate on Tuesday confirmed former investment banker Jerome Powell as head of the Federal Reserve, putting President Donald Trump’s pick in a role of enormous influence over the world’s largest economy. Powell, a current Fed governor, was confirmed by a vote of 85-12, paving the way for him to replace current Chair Janet Yellen when she steps down next month.
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