{"id":5636,"date":"2018-12-19T20:01:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T20:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/fed-raises-rates-but-cuts-2019-forecast\/"},"modified":"2018-12-19T20:01:04","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T20:01:04","slug":"fed-raises-rates-but-cuts-2019-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/fed-raises-rates-but-cuts-2019-forecast\/","title":{"rendered":"Fed raises rates but cuts 2019 forecast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"The Federal Reserve in Washington in August 2018\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/9BDA\/production\/_103589893_hi049285071.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    The Federal Reserve has been gradually raising interest rates since 2015<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates again &#8211; but future increases may come at a slower pace.<\/p>\n<p>Officials at the US central bank voted to lift the Fed&#8217;s key interest rate by 0.25%, to a target range of 2.25%-2.5%.<\/p>\n<p>But estimates released on Wednesday show most members expect two rate increases in 2019 &#8211; not three, as previously forecast.<\/p>\n<p>The shift follows a downturn in US financial markets and concerns about slowing growth in the US and abroad.<\/p>\n<p>Officials now expect economic growth of 2.3% in 2019, down from the 2.5% they anticipated in September. <\/p>\n<p>Members also said they expect inflation to hover around 1.9% next year, compared to a 2% forecast in September.<\/p>\n<p>Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, a personal finance website, said: &#8220;The Fed downshifted their projections of 2019 economic growth, inflation, and interest rate hikes &#8211; not in a big way but enough to remove the urgency of repeated rate hikes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The Fed has been gradually raising interest rates since 2015, moving the US away from the ultra-low rates put in place during the financial crisis to spur economic activity.<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday&#8217;s decision, which was widely expected, marks the ninth increase since 2015 and the fourth this year.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46610412\" class=\"story-body__link\">Trump warns US Fed against making &#8216;yet another mistake&#8217;<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-42142163\" class=\"story-body__link\">How the US Federal Reserve sets interest rates<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The moves have made borrowing more expensive. With economic growth expected to slow, some worry that further increases risk stifling economic activity.<\/p>\n<p>US President Donald Trump has been among the loudest voices calling on the Fed to hold off on further increases.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the Fed said increases to its benchmark rate would help the US economy sustain its expansion, keep the unemployment rate low and inflation near 2%.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Fed qualified its position a bit, noting that &#8220;some&#8221; further gradual increases would be justified.<\/p>\n<p>Members also lowered their forecast for interest rates in 2020 and 2021. On average, they now expect the benchmark federal funds rate to hit about 3.1%, down from the 3.4% forecasted in September.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46624722\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Reuters Image caption The Federal Reserve has been gradually raising interest rates since 2015 The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates again &#8211; but future increases may come at a slower pace. Officials at the US central bank voted to lift the Fed&#8217;s key interest rate by 0.25%, to a target range of &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}