A few days into 2023 and it's time for some bad economic expectations beyond what most have projected.
Bankrate's 2022 Q4 survey of economists has come in with a consensus expectation that the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee will take its benchmark interest rates up to between 5.25% and 5.5%. The average number that the experts offered was 5.35%, well up over the 4.71% average in the third quarter's survey and the highest since 2001. The economists came in with peak rate expectations ranging from 4.75% to as high as 6.25%.
Most Fed officials, by the way, have said they expect rates to top out at between 5% and 5.25%. The lowest forecast from the Fed was 4.9%, while the highest was 5.6%. Previously, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis president Jim Bullard had made a case of at least 5% and potentially as high as 7%. Perhaps his views have changed. But then, as Bankrate noted, a year ago the Fed thought that inflation in 2022 would peak at 2.6%
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