Despite the fact that only a paltry 38,000 jobs were added to U.S. payrolls in May and that the current U.S. economy continues to show signs of not being able to support an interest rate hike at this time, Fed Chair Janet Yellen today signaled that we may still be in for not one, but perhaps two more interest rate increases this year.
At their meeting in March , the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) hinted that two rate hikes are likely this year and Yellen’s comments today at the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia show that her mind hasn’t changed since then. In her prepared remarks Yellen said:
“Next week, concurrent with our policy meeting, the FOMC participants will release a new set of economic projections. Those could, of course, differ from the previous set of such projections in March. But speaking for myself, although the economy recently has been affected by a mix of countervailing forces, I see good reasons to expect that the positive forces supporting employment growth and higher inflation will continue to outweigh the negative ones.”
Watch more below.
Four times a year the FOMC puts out its Summary of Economic Projections, which is are reviews from of each voting Federal Reserve Bank president as to where he or she believes the economy is headed and what the Fed’s interest rate target might be over the foreseeable future.
See more of Janet Yellen’s comments in Philadelphia todaybelow.
The S&P 500 closed at its highest level for 2016 as energy had it’s best day since April.
Here are the final numbers from Monday, June 6th on Wall Street:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 17920.33 (+113.27 / +0.64%)
NASDAQ: 4,968.71 (+26.20/ +0.53%)
S&P 500: 2,109.41 (+10.28/ +0.49%)
