Federal Reserve officials followed through on an expected interest-rate increase and raised their forecast for economic
growth in 2018, even as they stuck with a projection for three hikes in the coming year.

In a key change to its statement announcing the decision, the Federal Open Market Committee omitted prior language
saying it expected the labor market would strengthen further.

Instead, Wednesday’s missive said monetary policy would help the labor market “remain strong.”
That suggests Fed officials expect improvement in the job market to slow.

What Our Economists Say:“The most important takeaway from the December FOMC meeting is that even though policy
makers are becoming more bullish on economic prospects, they are not shifting to a more hawkish policy stance.

An extended inflation soft patch is giving the Powell-Fed a free pass to continue along Janet Yellen’s gradualist path
toward policy normalization.”

-- Carl Riccadonna and Yelena Shulyatyeva, Bloomberg Economics.


Rate Path

Despite the upgrade in near-term growth expectations, policy makers left the number of hikes projected for 2018 effectively unchanged.
The median forecast pegged the federal funds rate at 2.1 percent at the end of next year.


More analysis here


By Bye Janet, thanks for being such a Dove