Lockhart: Fed Still On Track To Raise Rates

“In determining how long to maintain this target range, the Committee will assess progress-both realized and expected-toward its objectives of maximum employment and 2 percent inflation”, the Fed said in a statement.

But the minutes indicate that most central bank officials do not think they need to wait that long.

Specifically, the overriding concern was that a global economic slowdown could knock the domestic economy off track.

So it would not be unrealistic if interest rates are kept on hold until the second half of next year.

“The Fed has in the past paid less attention to global developments”, he told CNN worldwide in an interview Friday in Lima, where he is attending a meeting of the Group of 20 major industrialized nations.

In the end, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%, the S&P 500 gained 0.1%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4%, and the Rfussell 2000 gained 0.2%.

On Friday, USA benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up 1.8 percent and Brent was 1.4 percent higher, with continuing strife across the oil-rich Middle East providing support.

Minutes from the European Central Bank’s September policy meeting showed the bank officials determined that downside risks to inflation intensified over the summer, though they needed more time to gauge the impact of financial-market volatility and slower growth in China.

“While I favor a somewhat later lift off than many of my colleagues, the precise timing for first increase in the federal funds rate is less important to me than the path the funds rate will follow over the entire policy normalization process”, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans said in remarks prepared for delivery to the CFA Society Milwaukee.

“Investors have kind of disregarded the jawboning from the Fed and the rhetoric from the Fed and are really looking at the data”, said Chris Gaffney, president at EverBank World Markets in St. Louis.

THE QUOTE: “The prospect of the first rate hike being pushed back to next year is giving the markets a boost this week”, said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA.

Crude oil prices rose overnight to its highest level in 3 months, extending its weekly gain to more than 10%.

Policy makers at the Federal Reserves believed the economic outlook warranted a rate hike this year, but global turmoil and low inflation required more prudence in allowing the liftoff. They’re concluding that “they’re not going to raise by the end of the year, unless we really see a change in the inflation data”.

SUPERVALU INC. (NYSE:SVU) finished last trade at $7.66, gaining 2.75%.

Wholesale inventories of durable goods rose 0.3% month-on-month in August, as a 0.3% decline in automotive inventories was offset by an increase in computer and machinery, with the former rising 1.9%, while the latter climbed 0.5%.