FOMC minutes sap confidence in December rate hike

Washington

MANY economists still take Federal Reserve policy makers at their word and predict the central bank will raise interest rates this year. Yet, even their confidence was shaken a bit on Thursday after the Fed released the minutes of its most recent policy meeting.

"We're still in the camp of December," said Thomas Costerg, a senior economist at Standard Chartered Bank in New York. "For now we're going to trust them, but they seem to find a lot of excuses each time" not to raise rates.

Minutes of the Sept 16-17 Federal Open Market Committee meeting showed officials were feeling pretty good about the US econ…