Fed hikes rates 25bp to 0.25%-0.5% range with no changes in 2016 projections – ING

FXStreet (Delhi) – Rob Carnell, Research Analyst at ING, notes that as predicted by 99 out of 102 economists on a Bloomberg survey, the Federal Reserve has raised its policy target range from 0.0%-0.25% to 0.25%-0.5%.

Key Quotes

“The statement text dealing with the change in policy states, “Given the economic outlook, and recognizing the time it takes for policy actions to affect future economic outcomes, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 1/4 to 1/2 percent”.

The text also added, “The Committee expects that economic conditions will evolve in a manner that will warrant only gradual increases in the federal funds rate; the federal funds rate is likely to remain, for some time, below levels that are expected to prevail in the longer run”. The “gradual increases” text is new.
But for this to really be considered a “dovish hike”, it would have been useful to see the median projection of the Fed funds rate, as projected by the Reserve Board members decline.

With no change in the 2016 projection, Fed Chair, Yellen, now has an uphill struggle to make the case for this to be considered “dovish”, though as we have said before, we think too much emphasis is placed by markets on this dot diagram, which has been way more aggressive than market expectations since its inception, and also at odds with the far more dovish Fed rhetoric.

There is some change to the text relating to economic activity, this states that, “A range of recent labor market indicators, including ongoing job gains and declining unemployment, shows further improvement and confirms that underutilization of labor resources has diminished appreciably since early this year”.

On inflation, the text states drops the reference to “Inflation is anticipated to remain near its recent low level in the near term”, but is otherwise largely unchanged.

There is also an addition of text referring to the reinvestment of proceeds from maturing assets which says that the Fed “anticipates doing so until normalization of the level of the federal funds rate is well under way”.

The decision was unanimous.”

Rob Carnell, Research Analyst at ING, notes that as predicted by 99 out of 102 economists on a Bloomberg survey, the Federal Reserve has raised its policy target range from 0.0%-0.25% to 0.25%-0.5%.

(Market News Provided by FXstreet)