Status: 11/02/2022 7:36 p.m
The US Federal Reserve is bracing itself against stubborn inflation with another large interest rate hike. For the fourth time in a row, the monetary authorities increased the key interest rate by 0.75 percentage points.
The US Federal Reserve has again increased its key interest rate by three quarters of a percentage point. This is the fourth exceptionally large rate hike in a row. The key interest rate has thus reached a range of 3.75 to 4.00 percent.
In order to combat persistently high inflation, the American currency watchdogs have raised the key interest rate by 3.75 percentage points since March. Since the price momentum has not slowed down noticeably since then, another large interest rate move was expected on the financial markets. Most recently, the inflation rate in the USA was 8.2 percent.
In view of mixed signals from the economy, investors are puzzling over whether the central bank will slow down its interest rate hikes at the end of the year or maintain the pace. The monetary politicians around Fed boss Jerome Powell remained vague here, however, and declared that they would keep an eye on economic and financial developments as the pace of further tightening steps was taken.
At the following press conference with Powell, experts should therefore pay particular attention to indications of the future course of monetary policy. Most recently, experts had assumed that the pace of interest rate hikes would slow, with the next rate hike of 0.50 points in December.
Markets and some economists fear that the US economy will slip into recession as interest rates rise. Despite high inflation and rising interest rates, gross domestic product continued to grow in the summer. However, the real estate market is now cooling down, while the labor market is still robust.
As a first reaction, prices rose on the stock markets. Investors initially maintained their hopes that the Fed would slow down. In line with this expectation, the euro was also able to make up some ground against the dollar.