The Federal Reserve continued its campaign of rapid interest rate increases on Wednesday, pushing up borrowing costs at the fastest pace in decades in an effort to wrestle inflation under control.
Fed officials voted unanimously at their July meeting for the second supersized rate increase in a row — a three-quarter-point move — and signaled that another large adjustment could be coming at their next meeting in September, though that remains to be decided. The decision on Wednesday puts the Fed’s policy rate in a range of 2.25 to 2.5 percent.
The central bank’s brisk moves are intended to slow the economy by making it more expensive to borrow money to buy a house or expand a business, weighing on the housing market and economic activity more broadly. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said during a news conference after the meeting that such a cool-down was needed to allow supply to catch up with demand so that inflation could moderate.
ADVE
I've been doing this for ~a decade, and I can't remember another time when such a chorus of strategists/sell-side economists/close central bank watchers so bluntly said: "Nope. The market read the Fed wrong." https://t.co/Jy36gAlIEP
— Jeanna Smialek (@jeannasmialek) July 28, 2022