The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday and pointed to solid U.S. economic growth and a strengthening labor market while playing down the impact of recent hurricanes, a sign it is on track to lift borrowing costs again in December, APA reports quoting Reuters.
Investors had all but ruled out a move at the U.S. central bank’s policy meeting this week and attention has largely been focused on who will be in charge of monetary policy at the end of Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s first term in February 2018.
President Donald Trump is set to announce his nomination on Thursday afternoon with Fed Governor Jerome Powell, a soft-spoken centrist who has supported Yellen’s gradual approach to raising rates, seen as having a lock on the job.
“The labor market has continued to strengthen and ... economic activity has been rising at a solid rate despite hurricane-related disruptions,” the Fed said in a statement following its two-day meeting.
It acknowledged that inflation remained soft but did not downgrade its assessment of inflation expectations. The Fed also noted that the nation’s unemployment rate had declined further.
Financial markets were little changed after the release of the statement.
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