The Federal Reserve has held interest rates steady and signalled in new economic projections that the historic tightening of US monetary policy engineered over the last two years is at an end and lower borrowing costs are coming in 2024. In a new policy statement, US central bank officials took explicit account of the fact that inflation "has eased over the past year" and said it would watch the economy to see if "any" additional rate hikes are needed - implying directly that, after months of aggressive tightening and a bias towards moving rates higher, they may not need to raise them again. Indeed, a near unanimous 17 of 19 Fed…
