An official of the American Central Bank, the Fed, said on Wednesday that it was open, for the next meeting, to a rise in the key rate greater than that of February 1, in the face of inflation which remains strong in the United States.
“I’m open at this point to a 25 or 50 basis point hike,” or a quarter or half a percentage point, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said in a meeting with Fed leaders. ‘business.
An increase of 25 basis points would mark continuity with the previous increase in the key rate, on 1 February. The pace of rate increases had then slowed, after a 50 basis point increase in December, and four increases of 75 basis points previously.
If the Fed decides, at its next meeting on March 21 and 22, to raise rates by 50 basis points, it would therefore be a new acceleration.
And at this meeting, as is the case half the time, each Fed official will say how far he sees rates rising, in a document called a “dot plot”, which shows the anticipated levels of rates at using dots.
“I think where the points end up will be much more important than whether we go up 25 or 50 at the next meeting,” Neel Kashkari said.
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Inflation rose again in January in the United States, to 5.4% over one year against 5.3% the previous month, according to the PCE index, favored by the Fed, and which it wants to bring back around by 2%.
To achieve this objective, it has been raising its key rate for the past year. This, which was then within a range of 0 to 0.25%, now stands at 4.50-4.75%. And the institution warned that additional increases were to be expected.
Another measure of inflation, the CPI index, which is a benchmark and on which pensions are indexed, for its part showed a slight slowdown, to 6.4% over one year, against 6.5% in December, accelerating however over one month for the first time since September, to 0.5% against 0.1%.