Most signs point to the Federal Reserve raising short-term interest rates during its June meeting, in addition to starting the process to reduce its $4.5 trillion portfolio, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Fed’s two-day meeting concludes on June 14, and officials are expected to vote to increase rates by a quarter percentage point to between 1% and 1.25%. Fed officials agreed at their May meeting to slowly reduce the Fed's balance sheet of mortgages and Treasury securities by letting some mature each month. Central bankers have yet to specify how large that net of maturities will be per month, but those figures could become increasingly clear after the June meeting.
After the meeting the Fed will release economic and rate projections for the rest of the year, and are likely to project another rate hike before the end of 2017, the WSJ reports, adding that the hike could come as early as September, though it may be delayed depending on how the economy develops.
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