020 7898 0500The Federal Reserve monthly meeting announcement surprised the markets last night. It wasn’t that they confirmed the end of quantitative easing, this was widely expected, it was the language they used to describe the US labour situation which had shifted from that of saying there was significant underutilization to stating that they saw labour resources gradually diminishing. This increased the markets belief that interest rates were coming sooner rather than later which immediately say the US dollar gain significant ground across the board and head back towards four year highs against a basket of major currencies.
This is the second last Federal reserve meeting of the year, the next one is on December 16th. This – and reports from two more monthly jobs reports out early November and December – will be the key drivers to shape the outlook of the changing of interest rates.
