The Fed's Announcement
As expected, the Federal Reserve Board's Open Market Committee met last week and announced that they would be raising short-term rates by 0.25%. Since the move was anticipated, there was no major reaction by the markets, excepting for the usual increase in rates in anticipation of the decision and subsequently a little easing as the meeting grew closer. This was the seventh time the Fed had raised rates by 0.25% in the past three years during their period of rate "normalization" from the historic lows of the recession and slow recovery.