Study of Fed 'dot plot' suggests Yellen wants 3 rate hikes this year

Washington

HAS Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen been outed as favouring three interest rate increases this year, as opposed to a more dovish two?

That's the buzz making the rounds among hardcore Fed watchers as they parse an outpouring of comments by policymakers over the past four weeks.

"Yellen likely put down three hikes" for 2017 when Fed policymakers submitted projections in December, according to Laurence Meyer, a former Federal Reserve governor who now heads a policy analysis firm in Washington that bears his name.

Mr Meyer is playing a game of elimination popular among investors and economists that revolves around the so-called dot plot. That's a graphic layout that the Fed publishes every three months to show where policymakers think interest rates sho…