Powell says a half-point rate hike is possible

On Thursday, the President of the United States Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, indicated that Future interest rate hike by half a point in May It’s something “on the table”.

That increase would be double that adopted in March, which was a quarter point and was the first time the Fed has raised interest rates since 2018.

“It is appropriate in my opinion that we move a little faster. We make these decisions at every meeting and the decision will be made in May after that, But a rise of 0.5 points is on the tablePowell said.

The Federal Reserve Chairman participated in a roundtable on the state of the global economy with European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva as part of the IMF’s Spring Meeting this week.

March 16th, last year. The Federal Reserve announced a quarter-point rate hike to combat hyperinflationThis is the first increase since 2018.

With this increase, the official interest rate for the world’s largest economy is in the range of 0.25% to 0.5%.

The next monetary policy meeting of the Federal Reserve, at which it will be decided whether there will be a new high and the number of points, will be on May 3 and 4.

The main objective of the Federal Reserve at the moment is To mitigate excessively high inflation, Which was located last March in the United States in 8.5% annual growthThis is the highest number recorded since 1981.