Even With Low Inflation, Fed Expected to Raise Rates Midyear

Federal Reserve officials will look past low inflation and stay focused on raising interest rates around mid-year as they meet this week, according to a narrow majority of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Some 45 percent of 53 economists in the survey said the central bank will raise the benchmark lending rate in June. Six percent said July, while 30 percent said the Fed will wait until September for the first increase since 2006. Fed officials last month said they expect to raise the rate this year.

“The economy is increasingly showing signs that it is no longer in crisis mode,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York, who is forecasting a June increase. “Low inflation is mainly an oil-price story” and that “will be good for the U.S. economy.”

Bloomberg

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