The rhetoric was the same after today’s meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee: “Inflation has risen, largely reflecting transitory factors.”
The Fed kept its benchmark short-term interest rate at 0% to 0.25%
But the Dot Plot that tracks projections by the committee’s 18 members told a very different story: There’s more reason to expect an earlier increase in interest rates than back in March.
Today 13 of the 18 members of the committee tracked on the Dot Plot expect an interest rate increase by the end if 2023. That’s up from 7 in March. 11 members expect two interest rate hikes in that period.
7 of the 18 members now expect an interest rate increase in 2022. That’s up from just 4 expecting a rate increase next year in the March Dot Plot.
Stocks and bonds fell on the Dot Plot with an increase in selling during the last half hour of the session.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed down 0.54% (after being off 0.20% at 3:30 New York time.) The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished off 0.77% (after being down 0.46% at 3:30.) The NASDAQ Composite ended lower by 0.24% (after being ahead a scene 0.05% at 3:0) and the NASDAQ 100 closed down 0.34%. The Russell 2000 small cap index was down 0.21% on the day and the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) was lower by 1.38%.
The CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) gained 3.23% to 17.57 after bouncing around between red and green territory during the day.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note gained 8 basis points as bond prices fell to 1.57%.
