“Job gains remained solid and the unemployment
rate was little changed in recent months. Household spending has continued to
rise moderately while business fixed investment appears to have firmed
somewhat,”. “Inflation has increased in recent quarters, moving close to the
Committee's 2% longer-run objective; excluding energy and food prices,
inflation was little changed and continued to run somewhat below 2%.
Market-based measures of inflation compensation remain low; survey-based
measures of longer-term inflation expectations are little changed, on balance.”
The FOMC said it expects that, with gradual
adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at
a moderate pace, labor market conditions will strengthen somewhat further, and
inflation will stabilize around 2% over the medium term. Near-term risks to the
economic outlook appear roughly balanced, it added.
An analysis have said it found that the 25
basis-point increase will cost U.S. consumers roughly $1.6 billion in extra
credit card finance charges during 2017.
The Fed said it will also be maintaining its
existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency
debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities
and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction, and it anticipates
doing so until normalization of the level of the federal funds rate is well
under way. This policy, by keeping the Committee's holdings of longer-term
securities at sizable levels, should help maintain accommodative financial
conditions.
Some analysts are projecting the Fed could
raise rates as many as four times this year.
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