The Fed’s move to leave its benchmark rate at about 5.1%, its highest level in 16 years, suggests that it believes the much higher borrowing rates it’s engineered have made some progress in taming inflation. But top Fed officials want to take time to more fully assess how their rate hikes have affected inflation and the economy.The central bank’s 18 policymakers envision raising their key rate by an additional half-point this year, to about 5.
“With inflation set to moderate noticeably, we are skeptical that the Fed will resume hiking interest rates,” Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist of Oxford Economics, wrote in a note. “Our baseline forecast is for the Fed to remain on hold through the remainder of this year before gradually easing in early 2024.”
The Fed’s aggressive streak of rate hikes, which have made mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and business borrowing costlier, have been intended to slow spending and defeat the worst bout of inflation in four decades. Average credit card rates have surpassed 20% to a record high.The central bank’s rate hikes have coincided with a steady drop in consumer inflation, from a peak of 9.1% last June to 4% as of May. But core inflation remains chronically high. Core inflation clocked in at 5.
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