Person Root Tag

"We think we are going to need to do further rate increases," Powell said Tuesday.

"The main point is that this is a change primarily in name only," said Ben Watkins, head of the state's Bond Division. "There will be no impact on debt whatsoever."

Many believe the Federal Reserve will slow down rate increases beginning in December.. Steve Friedman, senior macroeconomist at MacKay Shields, will join us the day after the meeting to discuss what was done and what he expects in the future.

"This week will likely have been the last active week of the year, but it turned out to be quite eventful," according to Barclays PLC.

The Fed chairman said he believes the Fed is getting close to a sufficiently restrictive level, but they're not quite there. While two good inflation reports are good, "there's still a long way to go to price stability."

Munis saw the best performance in November in decades, with the asset class ending in the positive by 4.68%. The MSRB reported that trading volume reached another record in November, with 1.29 million municipal trades.

Powell said smaller interest rate increases are likely ahead — and could start as early as next month.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard urged policymakers to raise interest rates further, saying the level will need to be higher to meet the central bank's goal to be "sufficiently restrictive" to bring down inflation.

"It will take time for the full effect of tighter financial conditions to work through different sectors and to bring inflation down," Brainard said. "Monetary policy will need to be restrictive for some time to have confidence that inflation is moving back to target."

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has deflected requests from a top critic, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for details of financial transactions by central bank officials, risking an escalation of tensions with lawmakers over disclosure issues.