LAGE data-data MENUNJUKKAN (THE FED bakal MENUNDA) kenaekan the FED FUND RATE (4)

Bisnis.com JAKARTA – Bank Sentral AS akhirnya memutuskan menaikkan suku bunga acuan sebesar 25 basis poin dari 0,75% menjadi 1%.

Mengutip Reuters, The Fed menaikkan suku bunga pada Rabu (15/3/2017) waktu setempat, untuk kedua kalinya dalam tiga bulan. Langkah tersebut didorong oleh pertumbuhan ekonomi yang stabil, lapangan pekerjaan yang kuat dan keyakinan bahwa inflasi naik ke target bank sentral.

The Fed menaikkan suku bunga acuan sebesar 25 basis poin ke kisaran 0,75% menjadi 1,00% menandai salah satu langkah yang paling meyakinkan Fed, tapi belum dalam upaya untuk mengembalikan kebijakan moneter agar pijakan lebih normal.

Namun, komite kebijakan pengaturan The Fed tidak menghadang rencana untuk mempercepat laju pengetatan moneter. Meskipun inflasi mendekati target The Fed sebesar 2%, menunjukkan kemungkinan untuk membuat harga naik pada ritme yang sedikit lebih cepat.

Penaikan suku bunga lanjutan, hanya akan dilakukan secara bertahap. Dimana The Fed berpandangan akan melakukan sebanyak dua kali lagi penaikan pada tahun ini dan tiga kali penaikan pada 2018.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday lifted a key short-term interest rate for the second time in three months, but in a sign of caution, the central bank stuck to its forecast for just two more rate hikes this year.

The bank pointed to steady U.S. growth, an improving labor market and greater confidence among consumers and businesses to justify its decision to raise its fed funds rate to a range of 0.75% to 1%. The cost of borrowing for mortgages and most other loans for businesses and consumers are tied to the benchmark rate.

U.S. stocks SPX, +0.84%  extended gains after the Fed decision. Yields on the 10-year TMUBMUSD10Y, -4.09%  fell.

“The simple message is, the economy is doing well,” Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said in a press conference after a central bank meeting in Washington.

See live blog of Fed decision and Yellen press conference

At the same time, the Fed also noted a recent uptick in prices has resulted in inflation “moving close” to its 2% target, another critical component in its decision. The bank’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE index, rose at a 1.9% pace in the 12-month span ended in January — more than double the rate as recently as last summer.

The vote was 9-to-1. The president of the Minneapolis Fed preferred to leave rates unchanged.

Some economists had thought the Fed might signal it was ready to pick up the pace of rate hikes to once-per-quarter given signs that inflationary pressures seem to be building.

Yet the Fed also left itself room to maneuver in case inflation tapers off, U.S. growth falters or some of the Trump administration’s policies disrupt the economy. Central bank VIPs still see just two more rate hikes in 2017 despite a sharp pickup in inflation over the past year and a half.

Read the March FOMC statement.

In its statement, the Fed added a fresh wrinkle by noting that inflation was little changed and still running below its long-term target if energy and food prices were excluded.

The Fed was alluding to the big impact that oil prices have on U.S. inflation. Higher oil prices are largely behind the recent increase in inflation, just like plunging oil costs kept price pressures in check in 2015 and the first half of 2016.

“That rise was largely driven by energy prices,” Yellen said. Still, she said the Fed expects inflation to creep higher in the near future.

Another area of uncertainty is the role of Washington. President Donald Trump is seeking to slash regulations, cut taxes, boost government spending on public works and take other measures to stimulate the economy.

Yellen said she’s seen little evidence yet of sea change in the economy aside from greater confidence among businesses and consumers.

“We haven’t tried to map out what our response would be to certain policies,” she said. “We have plenty of time to see what happens.”

👃

Bisnis.com, JAKARTA – Bursa saham AS ditutup menguat setelah Federal Reserve memutuskan untuk mempertahankan suku bunga acuannya.

Dow Jones Industrial Average ditutup menguat 163,74 poin atau 0,9% ke level 18.293,7, sedangkan indeks Standard & Poor’s 500 menguat 23,36 poin atau 1,09 persen ke 2.163,12.

Seluruh 11 sektor indeks S & P ditutup menguat, didorong oleh sektor energi yang menguat hingga 2,1% karena harga minyak naik.

Sebelumnya, The Fed mempertahankan suku bunga pada level 0,5% dalam keputusan rapat dua hari 20-21 September 2016.

Suku bunga (Fed Funds Rate) diputuskan tidak berubah, karena menunggu lebih banyak data yang menunjukkan kemajuan bidang ekonomi.

Fokus pasar saat ini bergeser ke pertemuan Fed pada Desember, yang dinilai menjadi kesempatan terakhir untuk menaikkan suku bunga pada tahun 2016.

"Hanya ada sedikit keraguan pada seluruh orang bahwa The Fed mungkin akan menaikka suku bunga, dan saat ini seluruhnya sudah jelas, investor merasa bebas untuk menaruh uang ke pasar saham," kata Peter Tuz, presiden Chase Investment Counsel, seperti dilansir Bloomberg.

"Ditambah dengan BOJ yang juga tidak mengubah suku bunga acuan, pasar hari ini bergerak positif," lanjutnya..

Seperti dilansir Reuters, Gubernur The Fed Janet Yellen yang berbicara setelah pernyataan kebijakan terbaru bank sentral mengatakan pertumbuhan ekonomi AS terlihat meningkat dan kenaikan suku bunga acuan akan diperlukan untuk mencegah inflasi tinggi.

Setelah pernyataan Fed, probabilitas kenaikan suku bunga acuan pada Desember meningkat menjadi 63%.

reuters: Goldman Sachs has further cut its view on the likelihood of a rate hike next week by the U.S. Federal Reserve, dropping it to just 25 percent from 40 percent after the final round of Fed speakers on Monday declined to nudge markets in the direction of further policy tightening.

"A common theme was the absence of a clear signal that the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) is likely to hike in September," Goldman's economic team, led by Jan Hatzius, wrote in a note to clients late Monday.

"The lack of a signal is meaningful because if action were likely, the committee would normally make an effort to nudge the market toward anticipating a hike."

The FOMC meeting convenes in Washington on Sept. 20 and concludes on Sept. 21 when it will issue a monetary policy statement and updated forecasts from FOMC members on the direction of the economy and interest rates. That will be followed by a news conference by Fed Chair Janet Yellen.

Goldman, which had pegged the probability of a rate hike at 55 percent earlier this month, also said the chances of the next FOMC rate hike occurring at the committee's December meeting have risen to 40 percent from 30 percent.

"While participants’ recent arguments for and against further tightening mirror those made in the pre-liftoff debate, we find the generally in-line performance of the economy this year difficult to square with the policy path that the FOMC has chosen," Goldman wrote.

Monday featured three Fed officials delivering public comments. The most anticipated had been Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard, a noted policy dove whom some investors had thought might signal a change in her stance, which in turn may have signaled a willingness for the FOMC to raise rates as early as next week.

Brainard did not break with her dovish view, however, cautioning against a rush to raise rates too soon.

In December 2015, the Fed raised rates for the first time in nearly a decade, bringing the range for the federal funds rate to between 0.25 percent and 0.50 percent from a range of 0 percent to 0.25 percent previously. It has not changed policy since.

Following that, market-based measures of the chances the Fed would lift rates next week dropped to just 15 percent from 24 percent the day before, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool.

(Reporting By Dan Burns; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

marketwatch: Therein lies the problem for the Fed. If the LMCI is indeed forecasting weaker employment, then the Fed’s ability to raise interest rates is negated.However, as shown in the chart below, the Fed has ALWAYS been late to the game when hiking interest rates. Each time the Fed began hiking interest rates was at the point the LMCI had effectively peaked.

Employment And Interest Rates

Once again, the Fed is behind the curve in tightening monetary policy. With employment likely to weaken further in the months ahead, along with the economic, the ability to lift rates in the current environment is extremely risky. In other words, in an economy growing at roughly 1% currently, there is very little room to avoid a policy mistake.

As Larry Summer recently stated:

My second reason for disappointment in Jackson Hole was that Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet L. Yellen, while very thoughtful and analytic, was too complacent to conclude that ‘even if average interest rates remain lower than in the past, I believe that monetary policy will, under most conditions, be able to respond effectively.’ This statement may rank with former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s unfortunate observation that subprime problems would be easily contained.