Rate now .50%
So, the Fed has doubled the interest rate!
** FED RAISES INTEREST RATES 0.25 POINT IN UNANIMOUS VOTE
— SEES CONDITIONS WARRANTING `ONLY GRADUAL’ RATE INCREASES<— Dovish
— FORECASTS SIGNAL SAME 2016 RATE RISE PACE AS SEPT. OUTLOOK
— MEDIAN FED FUNDS RATE 2.4% END-2017 VS 2.6% SEPT. EST.
— MEDIAN FED FUNDS RATE 1.4% END-2016, UNCH VS SEPT. EST.
— MEDIAN 2016 PCE INFLATION OUTLOOK 1.6% VS 1.7% IN SEPT EST
— PCE INFLATION REACHES 2% GOAL IN 2018
— MEDIAN 2016 GDP GROWTH FORECAST 2.4% VS 2.3% IN SEPT EST.
— REINVESTMENT STAYS UNTIL NORMALIZATION `WELL UNDER WAY’
— statement change, “survey-based of longer-term inflation expectations have edged down.”
** As we rapidly look over all this we see little that should be a surprise; they hiked, we know why, and they’ll be gradual and data dependent. The slight, very slight, diminishment in distant dots and note on market measures of inflation expectations is perhaps slightly dovish but we’d make no big deal about it.
** Well, the market seems to generally concur — yields are a bit higher with long end outperforming, 2s up against 1%. As we wrote if this is the knee-jerk response it’s hardly much. For what it’s worth June Fed Fund Futures were 52 bp before and remain at 52 bp.
They are giving Hillary some place to go when her liberal garbage fashion of governing goes bad.
So much hype and hand-wringing over 1/4 of one percentage point?
Our monetary system is as now as centrally planned and socialized as the soviet wheat harvest was. This months-long debate over what the mandarins at the Fed will do proves this
I left my HP-12c in my other coat. What does this do to Federal Debt payments?
I think investors are okay with .25 pt.
Stock market dived right before the announcement (went in the negative) but then recovered right after.
.25% gutsy move on yellen’s part (not) but I guess it’s ok. Something is better than nothing. They’ve been threatening for weeks/months.