Fed Downshifts to Half-Point Hike, Sees 5.1% Rate Next Year

The Federal Reserve downshifted its rapid pace of interest-rate hikes while signaling that borrowing costs, now the highest since 2007, will rise more than investors anticipate as central bankers seek to ensure inflation keeps cooling.

The Federal Open Market Committee raised its benchmark rate by 50 basis points to a 4.25% to 4.5% target range. Policymakers projected rates would end next year at 5.1%, according to their median forecast, before being cut to 4.1% in 2024 — a higher level than previously indicated.

The hawkish projections have the potential to jolt financial markets, where speculation that the Fed would soon pause its hikes has contributed to easier financial conditions. Stocks have risen, while mortgage rates and the dollar have fallen since Powell last month suggested a policy shift was coming.

Investors prior to the decision bet rates would reach about 4.8% in May, followed by cuts totaling 50 basis points in the second half of the year — reflecting views that the Fed would be forced to shift in response to a weaker economy and falling inflation.

Instead, Fed officials stood firm on Wednesday.

“The committee anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2% over time,” the FOMC said in its statement, repeating language it has used in previous communications.

The vote was unanimous.

Treasury yields rose and the S&P 500 index gave up the day’s gains and the dollar index pared losses on the day.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who holds a press conference at 2:30 p.m. in Washington, had previously signaled plans to moderate hikes, while emphasizing that the pace of tightening is less significant than the peak and the duration of rates at a high level.

The decision follows four consecutive 75 basis-point hikes that have boosted rates at the fastest pace since Paul Volcker led the central bank in the 1980s.

Consumer-price increases have begun a more pronounced slowdown from their 40-year high earlier this year. But a growing cadre of economists expect the Fed’s aggressive action to tip the US into recession next year.

Such concerns have drawn lawmaker criticism, with Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Sheldon Whitehouse warning that rate hikes risk “slowing the economy to a crawl.”