Free Republic

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday enacted its second consecutive 0.75 percentage point interest rate increase as it seeks to tamp down runaway inflation without creating a recession.In taking the benchmark overnight borrowing rate up to a range of 2.25%-2.5%, the moves in June and July represent the most stringent consecutive action since the Fed began using the overnight funds rate as the principal tool of monetary policy in the early 1990s.

The Federal Reserve surprised the market Wednesday with projections that future interest rate hikes will come a bit sooner than expected. Gold bugs in particular were disappointed. The price of gold fell 4% Wednesday and was lower again Thursday, falling below $1,800 an ounce for the first time since early May. While it's true that gold often rises along with inflation fears, Wall Street may have already priced in this scenario. Investors appear to be selling gold now due to expectations that the Fed is taking the threat of inflation more seriously and may move more aggressively to tamp it...

A U.S. Federal Reserve Bank president said Monday the global markets seem to be poised for an interest rate hike this summer. James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis, said his outlook was not "too surprising" since signs are pointing to a second quarter rebound in the U.S. gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S. Bullard's remarks, made at an international conference in Seoul, South Korea, follow revised data Friday from the U.S. Commerce Department that the economy expanded faster than previously thought in the first three months of...

Well, I guess we can rule out another rate hike in January. That's what economists are saying, not that anyone seriously believed that the Federal Reserve was going to engage in back-to-back hikes after promising that rates would go up only gradually in the months ahead. With Wall Street off to its worst annual start in history, stock prices have been but one indicator that the economy could slow in the weeks and months ahead. That should give the Fed pause. Stocks, of course, have not been the only market-based gauge to suggest that both the domestic, and global, economies...

... the Fed Funds rate just tumbled to 0.12%, far below the required 0.25% floor set by the Fed, and down 23 bps from the effective 0.35% Fed Funds rate set yesterday, confirming that indeed the rate hike corridor can and has been breached at least once, and just two weeks into the Fed's rate hike experiment.