Friedberg @ 00:57:17Right
economy
At the March 2022 FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve will not raise the federal funds rate by 0.5 percentage points; instead, it will either raise by only 0.25 percentage points or defer a rate hike altogether.
as of today, my guess is that the probability of that is below 5%. And you're probably assuming, you know, um, a quarter point rate hike or maybe even a deferral, uh, at this point... And so this is not a great time to do a half point rate hike. And so it's almost certain at this point that they're not going to do a half point rate hike.View on YouTube
Explanation
The March 15–16, 2022 FOMC meeting concluded with the Federal Reserve raising the target range for the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage points (from 0–0.25% to 0.25–0.5%), not by 0.5 percentage points, and it did not defer the hike.
- The Fed’s official March 16, 2022 statement reports that the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 0.25 to 0.5 percent, i.e., a quarter‑point (25 basis points) increase.
- Contemporary coverage (e.g., major financial news and FOMC summaries) likewise records a 0.25 percentage point hike at that meeting, not 0.5.
Therefore, Friedberg’s prediction that the Fed would not implement a 0.5 percentage point increase in March 2022 and would instead do a smaller move (0.25 or possibly defer) was correct in the way the user has normalized it: the event he said was “almost certain not to happen” (a half‑point hike) indeed did not occur, and the actual outcome was a 0.25 percentage point hike.