INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has a new message for financial markets: watch the data on jobs, wages and inflation for signals on
what it could to steer markets on its policy intentions as it nursed a fragile economy to recovery after the financial crisis.
As part of
strangle economic growth.
But on Wednesday, the Fed removed that phrase from its policy statement.
Some investors read the change as a sign
the central bank was nearing an end to the interest rate hike cycle it began in December 2015; JP Morgan chief US economist Michael Feroli
the year, bringing its target range for its benchmark overnight lending rate to between 2 per cent and 2.25 per cent.
Fresh economic
forecasts also released on Wednesday showed most policymakers expect the central bank to raise rates five more times before stopping some
time in 2020.
But Powell said not to put too much store in those forecasts because they could change with incoming data.
He noted that he is
unsure when the rate increases he and his colleagues expect to deliver in the next year or two will start to bite into economic growth, or
