Federal Reserve is poised to lift interest rates for first time in more than nine years

Washington (Dec 16)  The Federal Reserve is set to lift interest rates for the first time in over nine years on (today) Wednesday at 2 pm Eastern.

The announcement, scheduled to come out of what’s called the Federal Open Market Committee, will be followed by a news conference with Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen, who will speak at 2:30 p.m.

The Fed has kept interest rates in a band between zero and 0.25% since December 2008, when it lowered rates in the midst of the Great Recession.

Now that the U.S. economy has been growing steadily for years, the central bank is poised to begin lifting rates.

Also read: Bernanke says he never expected rates to be at zero for so long

The likely rate hike has been well choreographed. Markets were pricing in an 83% chance of a rate hike, as of Monday afternoon.

One of the big questions awaiting Yellen is how quickly the Fed will follow up the first rate hike with another — some say it could be as little as three months later.

Another is how the central bank looks at the continued rout in energy markets, which of late has spilled into the junk-bond market.

Source: MarketWatch