The United States Federal Reserve (Fed) announced this Wednesday the eighth consecutive increase in interest rates, an increase of 0.25 pointswhich confirms a slowdown in the rises.
With this rise, less than the previous rises, the rates are located in a range of 4.5% and 4.75%, the highest figure since September 2007.
“Continuous increases will be appropriate to achieve a monetary policy stance that is restrictive enough to return inflation to 2%,” said the US central bank in a statement acknowledging that this rate “has decreased a little, but is still high“.
To determine the scope of future increases, the Fed added, the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the time it takes to see the impact of said policy on the economy and inflation, and economic and financial developments will be taken into account.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is expected to give a press conference in a few minutes, whose tone will set out more clearly the direction the regulator is going to take in the coming months.
The decision was announced after a two-day meeting held by members of the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), who voted unanimously.
To try to limit inflation, the Fed began the increases in March 2022 with a timid 0.25. In May it raised rates 0.5 points and in June it already began a streak of increases of 0.75 integersbefore falling back to 0.50 last December.
Since it reached its peak in June (9.1%), Inflation has eased to 6.5% and in December it fell for the sixth consecutive montha piece of information that analysts say is a sign that rate hikes are beginning to have an effect on the US economy.
However, from the Fed they have continued to insist that they will not stop until a monetary policy is reached that is sufficiently restrictive to return to 2% inflation.
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