12/18/2024

Fed Expected to Combine Interest Rate Cut with Hawkish 2025 Outlook

The agency is concerned about the new administration's uncharted policies

The Federal Reserve is expected to lower borrowing costs on Wednesday in what some observers are calling a "hawkish cut" set to be delivered alongside policymakers' updated interest rate outlooks and economic forecasts covering the first months of the incoming Trump administration.

The anticipated quarter-percentage-point move would lower the U.S. central bank's benchmark policy rate to the 4.25 percent to 4.50 percent range, a full percentage point below where it stood in September when it began easing the tight monetary policy used to counter a surge in inflation that began in 2021.

How much further and how fast rates will fall next year remains increasingly uncertain with inflation still lodged above the Fed's 2 percent target, the economy growing faster than expected and the prospect that President-elect Donald Trump's tariff, tax and immigration policies could change the economic landscape in unpredictable ways once he takes office in January.

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