Janet Yellen Says Federal Reserve Might FINALLY Hike Interest Rates

“December is now a very high likelihood for the Fed to hike rates”. This call was particularly notable because it came on August 24, the day the stock market saw something like a “flash crash” as worries over economic growth in China sent the Dow down as many as 1,000 points. Dudley later Wednesday said he would “completely agree” that December is a “live possibility” for raising rates.

Yellen, the Fed Chair told the House Financial Services Committee that the economy is “performing well”. Higher yields and rising expectations of a December rate hike lifted the dollar index.DXY, which last stood at 97.913, slightly lower than a three-month peak of 98.135 scaled overnight. Fed governor Lael Brainard has expressed among the deepest concerns about whether a weak global economy could damage the USA recovery, but on Wednesday struck a slightly more upbeat note. Yellen said that the timing of the interest rate hike would mostly depend on the next few economic reports, which the first piece of data about the October employment numbers will be coming in this Friday.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 14.5 points, or 0.31%, on volume of 17,908 contracts.

Attention will continue to focus on interest rates this week, especially with the Labor Department’s non-farm payrolls report tomorrow morning.

“It’s been a long time that interest rates have been at zero, but markets and the public should be thinking about the entire path of policy rates over time”. Goto added that a number above 165,000-170,00 along with a tick up in wages would prompt the Fed to start hiking rates in December.

As for wages, the month also brought a 9-cent rise in the average hourly earning rate, with workers on private nonfarm payrolls now making an average of $25.20, according to the BLS. The company said more than 1.5 billion people now visit Facebook at least once a month, up 14 percent from a year ago.

Bank stocks rose, helped by the possibility of higher interest rates, while dividend-paying stocks like utilities sank.

Furthermore, the U.S. unemployment rate slumped from 5.1% in September, to 5.0% in October.

Palladium dropped as much as 4.2 per cent to a six-week low of $US600 an ounce and was on track for its biggest weekly loss in more than four years. Overnight, US crude futures fell steadily on Thursday extending losses from the previous session, as energy traders continued to digest a bearish supply report on nationwide inventory levels from the last week of October.