Close Close
Sign In
Newsletters
Popular Financial Topics Discover relevant content from across the suite of ALM legal publications From the Industry More content from ThinkAdvisor and select sponsors Investment Advisor Issue Gallery Read digital editions of Investment Advisor Magazine Tax Facts Get clear, current, and reliable answers to pressing tax questions
Luminaries Awards
Podcast Center Video Center Webcasts Resource Center Events
About ThinkAdvisor Contact Us Advertise With Us Asset & Logo Licensing Sitemap Terms of Service Privacy Policy Copyright © 2024 ALM Global, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
ThinkAdvisor

Portfolio > Economy & Markets

IMF Urges Fed to Delay Rate Hike

By Kasia Klimasinska

X
Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

The Federal Reserve should hold off from raising interest rates until the first half of 2016, the International Monetary Fund said as it cut its U.S. growth forecast for the second time in three months.

The lender also said that the dollar was “moderately overvalued” and a further marked appreciation would be “harmful,” in a statement released in Washington on Thursday on its annual checkup of the U.S. economy.

“The FOMC should remain data dependent and defer its first increase in policy rates until there are greater signs of wage or price inflation than are currently evident,” the IMF said. Based on the fund’s economic forecast, and “barring upside surprises to growth and inflation, this would put lift-off into the first half of 2016.”

A stronger dollar, declining oil investment and a West Coast port strike in the first quarter will pull down U.S. growth to 2.5 percent this year, said the fund, which previously projected the world’s largest economy to expand by 3.1 percent in 2015. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg also expect U.S. growth of 2.5 percent this year.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on May 22 said she still expects to increase interest rates this year if the economy meets her forecasts. The Fed, which hasn’t raised rates since 2006, will need to see continued improvement in labor market conditions and be “reasonably confident” that inflation will move back to 2 percent, she said.

Investors currently expect the Fed to move in December, according to bets placed in interest-rate futures markets.

Weak Inflation

The strengthening dollar and global disinflationary trends will probably weaken inflation pressures, according to the IMF.

The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, increased 0.1 percent in April from a year earlier, marking the smallest 12-month gain since 2009, according to government figures.

“Inflation inertia, firmly anchored expectations, Fed credibility and a relatively flat relationship between inflation and slack suggest that a sudden acceleration in wages or prices is unlikely,” the IMF said in the 10-page statement.

The dollar, which rose 13 percent in real effective terms over the past 12 months, is “moderately overvalued” and is hurting U.S. growth and job creation, the fund said.

“There is a risk that a further marked appreciation of the dollar — particularly one that takes place in an environment where policies to address growth deficiencies languish both in the U.S. and abroad — would be harmful.”

The report also discussed financial stability, with the IMF pointing to higher risks in shadow banking, a potential lack of liquidity in fixed-income markets, and greater market risk- taking in the insurance industry.

— Check out ECB Worried About Fed-Driven Crash on ThinkAdvisor.

NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.