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Walls’ Street: Are the markets ready for a Fed rate hike?

NBR's Jason Walls and Andrew Patterson toss around the big news and interesting topics in the economic world. With special feature audio.

NBR Radio
Thu, 02 Jun 2016

The debate over how ready the markets are for the US Federal Reserve to again hike interest rates has been thrown back into the spotlight after comments from a Fed official this week.

The president of the St Louis Federal Reserve, James Bullard, indicated the financial markets were “well-prepared” for the Fed hiking rates over the US summer.

He did not, however, indicate in which month he thought the Fed would increase its fund's rate.

“My sense is that markets are well-prepared for a possible rate increase globally and that this is not too surprising given our liftoff from December and the policy of the committee which has been to try to normalise rates slowly and gradually over time,” Mr Bullard told a news conference after speaking at an academic conference in Seoul.

In Australia this week, economic growth smashed market and Reserve Bank of Australia expectations.

First quarter GDP growth rose 1.1% quarter-on-quarter – 0.3% ahead of market expectations. This takes the annual growth rate up to a three-and-a-half year high of 3.1%.

NBR’s Jason Walls and Andrew Patterson mull over the implications of the data and what it says about the Aussies new economic direction. 

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NBR Radio
Thu, 02 Jun 2016
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Walls’ Street: Are the markets ready for a Fed rate hike?
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