The market continues to project one final interest rate hike in December this year despite recent economic setbacks.
The most recent employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed jobs fell by 33,000, the first decrease since 2010.
However, even after this significant loss, experts predicted the Federal Reserve members would blame the recent hurricanes and move forward with their plans for a December rate hike.
“The lousy returns from the September jobs report will make little impression on observers, who essentially gave the labor market a free pass due to the impact of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma,” said Curt Long, National Association of Federally Insured Credit Unions chief economist, who was just one of many economists to make this same prediction.
Now, it seems their predictions were correct. Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker explained Thursday that the Fed is still likely to raise rates in December, according to an article by Gregg Robb for CNBC.
“I have penciled in a third rate hike in December but we have to see how the inflation dynamics play out,” Harker said in his interview with CNBC.
From the article:
In the interview, Harker, who is a voting member on policy this year, said that the current low inflation and 2% growth environment “is not a horrible situation.”
He said he might change his growth outlook depending on the details of any tax cut plan passed by Congressional Republicans. At the moment, there is not enough information to alter his forecast, Harker said.
Due to the strong wage growth seen in Friday’s jobs report, traders are now forecasting a 90% chance of a rake hike at the Fed’s December meeting, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
At the beginning of the year, most experts predicted the Federal Open Markets Committee would raise rates three times in 2017. So far, it raised rates by 25 basis points in March, and another 25 basis points in June.
