Federal Reserve, rejecting Trump’s growth forecast, confirms rate-hike pause

The Federal Reserve sent a clear signal Wednesday that it’s unlikely to raise interest rates at all this year, a striking change from December when central bank officials judged that two more hikes might be necessary in 2019.

That message is certain to please President Donald Trump, who last year repeatedly bashed the central bank for its steady campaign of rate increases. What bodes less well for Trump is why the Fed downgraded its estimate for rate hikes: expectations of slower economic growth.

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The Fed did not announce any rate moves on Wednesday.

Fed officials estimate that the U.S. economy will grow at 2.1 percent this year, down from their 2.3 percent prediction in December. That outlook clashes with the optimistic growth forecast put forward on Tuesday by White House economists, who projected that gross domestic product would grow at or above 3 percent for the next five years, citing a pickup in business investment after the recent corporate tax cuts.

The Fed poured some cold water on that front too.

“The labor market remains strong but … growth of economic activity has slowed from its solid rate in the fourth quarter,” Fed policymakers said in a statement after two days of meetings this week. “Recent indicators point to slower growth of household spending and business fixed investment in the first quarter.”

Since the Fed last hiked rates in December, Chairman Jerome Powell and other officials have emphasized that the central bank would be “patient” in judging the need for more increases, citing slowing global growth and trade tensions. They stuck to that mantra on Wednesday.

Still, no Fed officials indicated that they expect the central bank to cut interest rates in the next couple of years.

Notably, Powell has strongly cautioned against reading too much into the Fed’s projections for future rate moves, particularly given officials’ uncertainty about how the economic outlook will evolve. Central bank officials put forward estimates about future rate moves based on the most likely path of the economy but do not individually outline what type of risks might put the economy on a different course.

The Fed also announced a plan to stop shrinking its massive stockpile of Treasury bonds and bundled mortgages, bought in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to spur growth. That reduction has had the effect of tightening credit conditions, alongside the rate hikes.

The central bank said it would start to slow the pace of its balance sheet reduction in May and then stop shrinking the overall size of its holdings altogether in September. However, it will continue allowing mortgage-backed securities to roll off its balance sheet and move toward its long-term goal of holding a more conventional balance sheet of primarily Treasuries.