But in April, Fed officials began to shift their view, expressed in speeches and other public comments, on how quickly interest rates will have to rise to get inflation under control, and Wall Street’s economic projections shifted too. In the futures market, where traders bet on how high interest rates could go, the predominant view now is that the Fed’s benchmark rate will climb to around 2 percent by July — something that seemed unimaginable even a month ago.For that to happen, the central bank would have to raise its policy rate by half a percentage point at each of its next three meetings, and the fear is that such aggressive increases will trigger an economic slump, rather than just cooling things down enough to slow inflation but keep the economy growing.“Every time the Fed has spoken, markets have taken it fairly negatively,” said Saira Malik, chief investment officer at Nuveen, a global investment manager. “Investors are concerned that with these multiple rate hikes, the Fed is going to cause a recession rather than a so …
