Rick Rieder: Fed makes case for further rate normalisation

The announcement of a further quarter-point policy rate hike by the US Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee was not surprising - indeed it was widely expected. That is largely because it has become increasingly clear over the past year that what is commonly thought of as the Fed's dual mandate has effectively either been achieved (in the case of labour markets) or is likely to be shortly met (price stability of near 2%). In fact, after another robust month of job growth in November, during which 228,000 jobs were gained, combined with a 4.1% unemployment rate, the US economy c...