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\u00a0The US Federal Reserve’s minutes of its previous meeting in early February, issued at the end of trading on Wednesday, showed stronger tightening than expectations in monetary policy, as some members preferred to raise interest rates by 50 basis points before everyone agreed on 25 basis points.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The members agreed on the need for an additional increase in interest rates, with the continuation of inflationary pressures, until inflation drops to the bank’s target of 2%.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The minutes were positive and supported the rises of the US dollar, as members did not discuss stopping raising interest rates or reducing them by the end of the year, raising market expectations for more hikes in the May and June meetings, in addition to the next March meeting, by 25 basis points, bringing expectations of peak interest levels now to 5.5%, compared to 5%.<\/span><\/span> .25% previously<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Forecasts for futures by CME’s FEDWatch tool now see interest rate hikes of 25 basis points at the March meeting by around 76%, in May by 74% and in June by 58%.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The yield on US Treasury bonds for two years, which is more sensitive to raising interest rates, rose by about 4 basis points, while the yield for ten years rose to its highest level since last November.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The general index of the US dollar, which measures the performance of the dollar against a basket of currencies, rose by 0.30%, to test 104.56 levels, before falling in the Asian session, and is now trading at 104.35 levels.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The Euro fell to its lowest level since January 6th, to test 1.0600 levels, while the Japanese Yen tested 135 levels again.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Gold declined by about 0.40%, testing levels of $1822 an ounce, and is now trading at $1828, on the rise.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The US indices ended the session in decline after they were trading on the rise, as the Dow Jones lost about 0.26%, while the S&P 500 index fell by 0.16%.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0The US Federal Reserve’s minutes of its previous meeting in early February, issued at the end of trading on Wednesday, showed stronger tightening than expectations in monetary policy, as some members preferred to raise interest rates by 50 basis points before everyone agreed on 25 basis points. The members agreed on the need for an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-currency-markets"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n