The Federal Reserve left its June meeting without raising interest rates after 10 consecutive rate increases.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) unanimously kept its key borrowing target range at 5% to 5.25%, instead opting to take the weeks until its next meeting on July 25-26 to evaluate whether to raise rates again.
“Holding the target range steady at this meeting allows the Committee to assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy,” the post-meeting statement said.
Projections from the two-day meeting suggest two more 0.25% hikes will come later this year.
The federal reserve’s “dot plot”, which measures FOMC members’ expectations for rates going forward, moved upward to a median of 5.6% by the end of 2023. If the committee moves in 0.25% increments, that would mean two more rate hikes this year.
Despite the unanimous agreement on a pause, there are discrepancies in how many more hikes members believe are necessary.
Nine members, half the committee, expect a pair of additional hikes, 2 members expect 3 more hikes, 1 member projects 4 more, while 2 others see no additional hikes this year.
Members also increased their forecasts for future years, now projecting a fed funds rate of 4.6% in 2024 and 3.4% in 2025, up from 4.3% and 3.1% in March, when the Summary of Economic Projections was last updated.
Those projections suggest that the Fed will eventually reverse course and cut rates within the next two years.
The Fed’s current tightening cycle began in March 2022, and rates have climbed more than 5 percentage points to their highest level since 2007.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
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