The Federal Reserve approved another quarter-percentage-point interest rate rise and signaled it could be done lifting rates after that, the Wall Street Journal reported. The decision yesterday marked the Fed’s tenth consecutive rate increase aimed at battling inflation and will bring its benchmark federal funds rate to a range of between 5% and 5.25%, a 16-year high. In a hint that officials could pause rate increases after the latest move, they cut a phrase from their previous policy statement, in March, that said some additional policy increases might be appropriate. Instead, officials said in their new statement Wednesday they would monitor economic and financial-market developments and the effects of their earlier rate increases “in determining the extent to which additional policy firming may be appropriate to return inflation to 2% over time.” The statement used language broadly similar to how officials concluded their interest rate increases in 2006, with officials indicating that any further change in rates was more likely to be an increase than a decrease.
