Traders Maintain Bets on Federal Reserve

(Reuters) – Traders on Friday kept bets that the Federal Reserve will wait until June to resume interest rate cuts after government data showed inflation by the U.S. central bank’s targeted measure ticked up to 2.6% in December, as economists had expected.

After the inflation report, released simultaneously with hawkish monetary policy remarks from Fed Governor Michelle Bowman, traders of futures that settle to the Fed’s policy rate priced in about a 70% chance that the short-term borrowing rate will be 4.25% or lower after the Fed’s June meeting, remaining relatively unchanged from earlier in the day.

Additionally, they were pricing in a second and final interest rate cut in 2025, no sooner than October.