This is a Reference Guide to accompany the Top of Mind with SIFMA Insights podcast, “Can the Fed Have Its Cake and Eat It Too?” Inside, we define terms and provide charts for topics we discuss including:

• Fed Funds Rate: Currently 4.75%-5.00%. Interest rate at which banks lend money to each other, typically on an overnight basis. Raising the target rate reduces the money supply and causes other market rates to rise, dampening consumer and business spending, slowing economic activity, and reducing inflation.
• Inflation: Currently, CPI 6.0%/Core CPI 5.5%/PCE 5.4%/Core PCE 4.7%. Reflected quantitatively by an increase of an average price level of a basket of selected goods and services in an economy and represents the rate of decline of purchasing power of a given currency over some period of time.
• Unemployment: Currently 3.6%. Represents the number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labor force, which is the sum of the employed and unemployed.

For more, follow Top of Mind with SIFMA Insights wherever you get your podcasts.

 

 

Author

Katie Kolchin, CFA
Managing Director, Head of Research

Related Resources

• The SIFMA Podcast

  Podcast: Can the Fed Have Its Cake and Eat It Too?

• SIFMA Research

  US Economic Survey, End-Year 2022

• SIFMA Insights

  Inflation 101