Fed begins meeting, ready to ease rate hikes

The US Federal Reserve (Fed) began a meeting on Tuesday, which will end on Wednesday, during which it should decide to begin a new phase in its fight against inflation and raise its rates less sharply than in recent years. month.

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It must also, during this meeting, publish its updated forecasts for the growth of the GDP of the United States, inflation, and unemployment.

Discussions are due to end Wednesday at midday.

A press release will be issued at 2:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. GMT), before a press conference by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell thirty minutes later.

Slow consumption

An increase in the key interest rate of half a percentage point is expected, after four very strong increases of three-quarters of a point.

The mighty U.S. Federal Reserve is preparing to slow down the pace, after having, since March, raised its rate from 0-0.25% to 3.75-4.00%, in order to slow consumption, and thus prevent prices from continuing to soar.

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But the full effects of its actions often take months to be felt, and this voluntary economic downturn could, if too severe, push the US economy into recession in 2023. “Time to slow the pace

,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell warned in late November.

And the inflation figures for November, published Tuesday morning, should convince Fed officials to begin this shift in their monetary policy.

Consumer price inflation has slowed more than expected, to 7.1% year on year, from 7.7% in October, and is now the lowest since December 2021, according to the Labor Department's CPI index, which refers to.

The Fed, which wants to bring inflation back to around 2%, is however favoring another measure, the PCE index, which will be published on 23 December.