The U.S. Federal Reserve is poised to raise interest rates Wednesday for the first time in 9-1/2 years. It may not take long to know whether its decision was correct. History is filled with cases when central banks raised rates prematurely, sometimes with dire consequences.
Main Street and Wall Street are fighting the U.S. Federal Reserve over municipal bonds—and they’re gaining ground.
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said the Fed is “going to return to an era where there is a bit more uncertainty about what the committee is going to do, meeting to meeting.”
Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and New York Fed President William Dudley said the central bank could boost interest rates as soon as next month, while Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer voiced confidence that inflation isn’t too far below the goal.
The Fed offered little clarity on the likely timing of a rate hike. Some Fed officials have signaled a desire to raise rates before year's end. But tepid economic reports have led many analysts to predict no hike until 2016.
In a lecture Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen suggested that global economic weakness won't likely be significant enough to dissuade the Fed from raising its key short-term rate from zero by December.
The Federal Reserve on Thursday decided to keep U.S. interest rates at record lows in the face of threats from a weak global economy, persistently low inflation and unstable financial markets.
Will the Fed raise the benchmark short-term interest rate from a record low on Thursday afternoon? Economists remain unsure, though the consensus seems to have shifted against the likelihood of an increase.
Recent stock market turbulence hasn’t made members of the Federal Reserve abandon the idea of a slight rate increase as early as September.
Many analysts predict that if the economy keeps improving, the Fed will raise its key short-term rate in September. That rate has been held near zero since 2008.
The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the U.S. economy this year and says the Federal Reserve should wait until the first half of 2016 to start raising short-term interest rates.
The Federal Reserve is edging closer to raising interest rates from record lows but Chairwoman Janet Yellen said she foresees no rate increase during the first quarter of 2015.
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said market-based measures of inflation expectations have declined to low levels in recent months but have rebounded since mid-October.
The Fed said it planned to keep its benchmark rate near zero as long as inflation remains under control, until it sees consistent gains in wage growth, long-term unemployment and other gauges of the job market.
The perilous question that now awaits Janet Yellen's Federal Reserve has put investors on nervous alert: Can it manage to raise rates from record lows without weakening the U.S. economy or spooking markets?
The Federal Reserve is further slowing the pace of its bond purchases because it thinks an improving U.S. economy needs less help. But it's offering no clearer hint of when it will start raising its benchmark short-term interest rate.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Tuesday that the economic recovery is not yet complete and for that reason the Fed intends to keep providing significant support to boost growth and improve labor market conditions.
The Federal Reserve will further slow the pace of its bond purchases because a strengthening U.S. job market needs less support.
The Fed will likely approve a fifth cut in its monthly bond purchases because the job market has strengthened. But no clear signal is expected on when it will start raising short-term interest rates from record lows.
The study by GoBankingRates.com finds that the average return on savings at Indiana banks is 0.056 percent. However, the average for Indianapolis-area banks was considerably higher.
