The US Federal Reserve raises interest rates by a further 0.75 percentage points

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Traders on New York's Wall Street: Many investors stocked up on stocks before the interest rate decision

Photo: Seth Little/AP

The rate of inflation in the USA is higher than it has been for around four decades, and the US central bank is now trying to counteract this with another interest rate hike: on Wednesday the Fed decided to raise the interest rate by 0.75 points to the new range of 1.50 to 1 .75 percent.

In view of the sharp rise in consumer prices, the Fed had raised interest rates twice in the past few months: by 0.25 percentage points in March and by 0.5 percentage points in early May to the current level of between 0.75 and 1.0 percent.

The inflation rate rose to 8.6 percent in May.

After much hesitation, the European Central Bank (ECB) has meanwhile decided to exit its ultra-loose monetary policy: the multi-billion bond purchases will end on July 1st.

At the next regular meeting of the ECB Council on July 21, the central bank intends to raise key interest rates for the first time in eleven years, initially by 0.25 percentage points each time

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Apr