Economists surveyed by Bloomberg project the Federal Reserve will hike its benchmark short-term interest rate by 50 basis points on Wednesday in an effort to damp inflation. And bond traders have just decided that the U.S.central bank will raise rates by 75 basis points at its June 15 meeting.
The CME Fed Watch Tool, which uses prices in the Fed Funds Futures market to calculate odds of a fed move, puts the odds of a 50 basis point increase from the current 0.25% to 0.50% to 0.50 to 0.75% at 99.8%. That tool puts the odds of a 75 basis point increase at the June 15 meeting at 87%. That’s up from odds of just 18% on April 1.
Bond prices are down and bond yields are up today. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury hung just below 3% at 2.99%, up 6 basis points on the day as of noon New York time. The yield on the 30-year Treasury had climbed to 3.05% and the yield on the 5-year had moved up to 3.00%.
Economists also expect that the Fed will start cutting its balance sheet at a maximum pace of $95 billion a month in June. This would be a quicker start to reducing the Fed’s bloated balance sheet than expected by economists and the financial markets back at the start of 2022. That balance sheet reduction would result from the Fed buying fewer Treasury issues to replace those in its portfolio that mature. This would have the effort to taking some Fed purchases out of the market, reducing demand for Treasuries, and putting upward pressure on yields.
