DHAKA: US Federal Reserve officials appear more confident that the economic conditions needed to trigger an interest rates rise are near.

Minutes of the Fed’s October meeting showed that the conditions may ‘well be met’ by the next gathering in December.

Fed officials saw the jobs market improving and inflation starting to move towards their 2% annual target.

The US looks to have weathered turbulence in global markets without signs of stress, the minutes said.

Wall Street rallied following the release of the minutes, with the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq indexes closing well above 1% higher.

‘The market today is just reinforcing the view that most likely the Fed is going to move in December, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing,’ said Jeremy Zirin, chief equities strategist at UBS Wealth Management Americas, reports the BBC.

The Fed has kept its benchmark for short-term rates near zero since late 2008, but there has been increasing speculation about the timing of a rise.

Earlier this year, many economists thought that a rate rise might come in September or October, but US market volatility and worries about economic growth in China put this on the back burner.

However, the Fed minutes indicated that officials felt the US had come through these difficulties.

‘The US financial system appeared to have weathered the turbulence in global financial markets without any sign of systemic stress,’ the minutes said.

BDST: 1252 HRS, Nov 19, 2015
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