(Reuters) – Traders of futures tied to the Federal Reserve’s policy rate trimmed bets Friday that the U.S. central bank will soon slow its aggressive interest-rate hikes after a government report showed U.S. employers added more jobs than expected in November
Fed funds futures prices still implied a better-than-even chance that the Fed will raise its policy rate just 50 basis points to a 4.25%-4.5% range in mid-December, a step down from four straight previous 75-basis point rate hike.
Before the Labor Department report, which showed employers added 263,000 jobs last month, traders had priced in a 77% chance of smaller rate hike.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Alexander Smith)
