Wall Street: Fed rates, Ukraine keep traders wary

Trade became bumpier amid rising tensions between West and Russia over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

NEW YORK: Still-cheap funds and signs of US economic strength after a lull kept Wall Street buyers cautiously in action this week, despite the Ukraine crisis and the Fed’s interest rates misfire. Trade became bumpier amid rising tensions between the West and Russia over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen added to the volatility by telling journalists that interest rates could begin rising around six months following the end of the quantitative easing stimulus programme. That sent stocks sinking on Wednesday as analysts calculated that it meant possibly early 2015 for a Fed funds rate hike, instead of the second half of the year as previously suspected. It would be the first move in interest rates off the rock-bottom level since the end of 2008.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 23^rd, 2014.

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