U.S. rates
Back in the US, Fed vice chair Stanley Fischer recently said the pace of any U.S. rate hikes would probably be more akin to a "crawling" than a "lift-off". Fischer was speaking in June, six months before the Fed on December 16, 2015, raised the U.S. cash rate from the zero to 0.25%.
Investors will need to monitor the U.S. economy to see how Fischer's prediction is faring.
What's unusual about the talk on the outlook for the U.S. cash rate is how polarised views are. While there are many who back Fischer's general view that the U.S. cash rate could rise to 1.5% by the end of 2016 and to 3% by the end of 2018, many think U.S. rates could rise higher and faster than expected because prices are drifting higher.
Inflation could become a concern, they say, because consumer spending is buoyant, wages are expected to expand at a reasonable pace now the jobless rate has halved from its post-crisis peak of 10% in 2009 and rental and medical expenses are rising.
The UK-based Capital Economics, for instance, forecasts the U.S. cash rate to reach 3.5% by 2017. Such predictions, if they come to fruition, would cause ructions to a fragile world economy.
The opposite line of thinking expects the Fed to join the list of blundering central banks--one that includes the Reserve Bank of Australia and the European Central Bank--that raised rates after the global financial crisis only to soon cut them again.
A survey in December by The Wall Street Journal of 65 economists found that 58% of those who responded said it was "somewhat or very likely" the U.S. cash rate will be back near zero within five years.
Worryingly, 10 said the Fed might even make its deposit rate negative as the ECB and other central banks have done. These pessimists see that a foreign shock, tame inflation, a financial crisis or the petering out of the recovery could force the Fed to backtrack.
