The US central bank on Wednesday announced its tenth consecutive interest rate rise, lifting its benchmark federal funds rate to a range of 5 to 5.25 per cent. Fed chair Jay Powell said the labour market remains “extraordinarily tight”, but said “there are some signs that supply and demand ... are coming back into better balance.”
Powell stressed on Wednesday that it would still take some time to bring inflation down towards the Fed’s 2 per cent target, but investors have been betting that the central bank will quickly pivot to cutting rates, with the first coming as soon as July. The two-year Treasury yield, which moves with interest rate expectations, jumped to session highs immediately following the publication of the data.