'Very Premature To Declare Victory': Fed's Rate Hike Won't Be The Last
The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it would raise interest rates by 25 basis points, and it's not the last time the central bank will increase the base rate this year.
The benchmark federal funds rate is now between 4.5% and 4.75%, up from nearly zero a year ago, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"We can now say for the very first time that the disinflationary process has started," Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said at a press conference on Wednesday. But more rate hikes are definitely in the cards, Powell indicated.
Though recent indicators such as December numbers from the consumer price index, a measure of inflation, suggested that inflation was slowing, it is still not 2%, or the rate the Fed has said it would prefer.
"It would be very premature to declare victory or to think that we’ve really got this," Powell said. "It is important that overall financial conditions continue to reflect the policy restraint that we’re putting into place," Powell said Wednesday. "It is our judgment that we’re not yet at a significant restrictive policy stance."
That doesn't give much certainty to CRE investors, many of whom are looking for more clarity about when rate hikes can be expected to cease before returning to a normal pace of business. At the end of 2022, many in the industry were holding out hope that 2023 would be the year that rate increases would peak and cease.
Fed officials, on the other hand, have previously said they expect rates to hit 5% to 5.25% by the end of this year.
