FED By Mistake Publishes The Rate Hike Forecast For This Year

FED staff economist inadvertently published the rate hike forecast for 2015. Staff economists at the Federal Reserve see a quarter-point U.S. interest rate increase this year, according to forecasts the Fed mistakenly published on its website in a gaffe that drew criticism about its ability to keep secrets.

Everyone has been talking of the potential rate hike by the middle of this year. But the middle of this year has come and gone and there has been no rate hike. As a trader keep this in mind that whenever the central bank increases the rate, be prepared for the stocks to shoot up and if you are a currency trader a rate hike means USDJPY  and USDCHF pairs will shootup while the other pairs  like EURUSD, GBPUSD, NZDUSD etc will shoot down.

Rate hike happens suddenly. But you can hear the buzz in the financial media that the central bank is planning a rate hike this month or this week. Just keep in mind if the FED increase the rate so will the Bank of England. Rate the Bank of England will try to increase the rate ahead of the Federal Reserve.

Update: Late Friday, the Fed revealed that some of the data in the confidential staff forecast was, in fact, not part of the confidential staff forecast. Here’s the corrected information. Here’s an updated story on what went wrong.

The Federal Reserve acknowledged Friday morning that it inadvertently published a confidential staff forecast prepared for a key meeting of its policy-setting committee in June. The documents include estimates for inflation, unemployment, economic growth … and the influential federal funds rate.