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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Fed’s Yellen hints at interest rate hike
US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen waits to speak at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Friday. Photo: Reuters
BOUNCING BACK: Economic growth in the US was a lackluster 0.8 percent in the past quarter, but economists estimate a growth of 2.5 percent for this quarter
/ AFP, WASHINGTON
Chances of a US Federal Reserve （Fed） interest rate increase by July rose significantly on Friday when Fed Chair Janet Yellen said a hike could be justified “in the coming months.”
Speaking at Harvard University, Yellen said she believed US economic growth and the labor market would continue to strengthen after the first-quarter slowdown and that the Fed’s worries early this year over the global economy and market volatility had diminished.
She said she expects economic activity to pick up and the labor market, with unemployment at 5 percent, to improve, supporting a slow and gradual increase in the Fed’s benchmark short-term rate.
“The economy is continuing to improve,” Yellen said. “Growth looks to be picking up.”
In that case, she said, “probably in the coming months such a move would be appropriate.”
That timeframe would put the Fed’s action at its June 14 and June 15 or July 26 to July 27 meeting.
Other officials of the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee （FOMC） have also used the “coming months” timeframe for an increase in recent weeks.
Many analysts had taken their comments as a concerted Fed effort to inform the markets that their expectations for an increase late this year at the earliest misread FOMC intentions.
Those expectations had already clearly changed before Yellen spoke at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
Last month trading in US federal funds rate futures contracts showed that markets gave a hike next month a less than 5 percent possibility.
However, since officials spoke out, markets are giving it a 30 percent chance and give a July hike as 60 percent probable.
However, until Friday’s comments, Yellen, whose voice is the strongest at the FOMC, had not weighed in.
Her tone and remarks were similar to other FOMC officials, “but her words carry more weight,” FTN Financial economist Chris Low said.
Since December last year, when the benchmark federal funds short-term rate was raised for the first time in more than nine years, to 0.25-0.5 percent, the FOMC has demurred from more hikes as the US economy went through a rough patch.
The US’ economic growth in the first quarter was a paltry 0.8 percent annual pace, but official and private sector forecasts point to 2.5 to 3 percent growth for the current quarter.
The newest data on consumer spending and the housing market in the beginning of the second quarter has been generally positive.
And on Friday the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index rose to 94.7, up from 89 last month, indicating a rise in consumer confidence after a late-winter downturn.
“More recent monthly data are signaling a much better performance in the second quarter — if anything, better, than the 2.5 percent pace in our forecast,” said Jim O’Sullivan of High Frequency Economics.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
