The coming turn in US interest rates may be the most telegraphed in many cycles. Yet for all Janet Yellen’s strivings at clarity, the US outlook remains clouded by poor visibility. Last week Ms Yellen said the Federal Reserve was still likely to raise interest rates this year — possibly in September — in spite of the sharp slowdown in first-quarter US growth. For one reason or another, including a series of harsh winters, growth in the first three months of the year has tended to underperform the rest of it, often heavily so. The US economy shrank by an annualised 2.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2014 only to rebound in the next three. Hopefully this year’s anaemic 0.2 per cent first quarter expansion will be equally misleading.
美國利率即將到來的轉向或許將是多個利率周期以來媒體報道最多的一次。然而，盡管美聯儲(Fed)主席珍妮特?耶倫(Janet Yellen)極力保持透明，美國的利率前景依然疑云密布、難以看清。耶倫上周表示，盡管今年首季度美國經濟增長大幅放緩，美聯儲仍有較大可能在今年加息——可能會在9月份。由于種種原因，其中包括連續幾年都遭遇嚴冬，一年中頭三個月的經濟表現往往弱于、而且是遠弱于余下幾個月。2014年首季度美國經濟以年率計萎縮了2.9%，結果在接下來3個季度里實現了反彈。運氣好的話，今年首季度堪稱疲弱的0.2%的增長率有望和2014年首季度一樣具有誤導性。