The FOMC unanimously decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 25 bps to 4.75-5.00% from 4.50-4.75%. Economists at Rabobank remove the June rate hike of 25 bps from their forecasts. However, they still believe that the Fed will keep rates unchanged for the remainder of the year.

Fed to raise the FFR one more time and keep it there for the remainder of the year

“The FOMC unanimously decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 25 bps. However, the FOMC does not want to go much higher and expects only one more 25 bps rate hike this year. Instead, the FOMC expects credit tightening by banks to do the rest of the inflation fighting for the central bank. During the Q&A you could easily get the idea that credit tightening is the Fed’s new monetary policy tool.”

“We lower our forecast for the target range of the fed funds rate to 5.00-5.25% from 5.25-5.50%. In other words, we now expect only one more hike of 25 bps instead of two. However, we stick to our forecast that the FOMC will not pivot this year.”