New York - The New York Federal Reserve officials tasked with prying interest rates off the floor have been meeting with bankers and traders to plot how best to do it, amid deep uncertainty over how much control they will really have over short-term lending markets.
With the US central bank expected to raise rates later this year, Simon Potter and his team of market technicians have the tricky job of implementing higher rates using some new and lightly tested tools as well as some that may not work as well as in the past. They'll be operating under intense global scrutiny that's centered on the prospects for the world's biggest economy.
Even while testing new methods meant to sweep up trillions of dollars of reserves from financial markets, Potter's team is preparing for volatility and to make on-the-fly adjustments when the time comes, according to interviews with Fed officials and market participants.