The U.S. federal funds rate peaked in 2023 at its highest level since the 2007-08 financial crisis, reaching 5.33 percent by December 2023. A significant shift in monetary policy occurred in the second half of 2024, with the Federal Reserve implementing regular rate cuts. By December 2024, the rate had declined to 4.48 percent. What is a central bank rate? The federal funds rate determines the cost of overnight borrowing between banks, allowing them to maintain necessary cash reserves and ensure financial system liquidity. When this rate rises, banks become more inclined to hold rather than lend money, reducing the money supply. While this decreased lending slows economic activity, it helps control inflation by limiting the circulation of money in the economy. Historic perspective The federal funds rate historically follows cyclical patterns, falling during recessions and gradually rising during economic recoveries. Some central banks, notably the European Central Bank, went beyond traditional monetary policy by implementing both aggressive asset purchases and negative interest rates.

View data of the S&P 500, an index of the stocks of 500 leading companies in the US economy, which provides a gauge of the U.S. equity market.

Historical dataset of the daily level of the federal funds rate back to 1954. The fed funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions (banks and credit unions) lend reserve balances to other depository institutions overnight, on an uncollateralized basis. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets eight times a year to determine the federal funds target rate.

In 2024, 62 percent of adults in the United States invested in the stock market. This figure has remained steady over the last few years, and is still below the levels before the Great Recession, when it peaked in 2007 at 65 percent. What is the stock market? The stock market can be defined as a group of stock exchanges, where investors can buy shares in a publicly traded company. In more recent years, it is estimated an increasing number of Americans are using neobrokers, making stock trading more accessible to investors. Other investments A significant number of people think stocks and bonds are the safest investments, while others point to real estate, gold, bonds, or a savings account. Since witnessing the significant one-day losses in the stock market during the Financial Crisis, many investors were turning towards these alternatives in hopes for more stability, particularly for investments with longer maturities. This could explain the decrease in this statistic since 2007. Nevertheless, some speculators enjoy chasing the short-run fluctuations, and others see value in choosing particular stocks.

Graph and download economic data for Federal Funds Target Range - Upper Limit (DFEDTARU) from 2008-12-16 to 2025-03-26 about federal, interest rate, interest, rate, and USA.

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet has undergone significant changes since 2007, reflecting its response to major economic crises. From a modest 0.9 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of 2007, it ballooned to approximately 6.76 trillion U.S. dollars by March 2025. This dramatic expansion, particularly during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic - both of which resulted in negative annual GDP growth in the U.S. - showcases the Fed's crucial role in stabilizing the economy through expansionary monetary policies. Impact on inflation and interest rates The Fed's expansionary measures, while aimed at stimulating economic growth, have had notable effects on inflation and interest rates. Following the quantitative easing in 2020, inflation in the United States reached eight percent in 2022, the highest since 1991. However, by November 2024, inflation had declined to 2.7 percent. Concurrently, the Federal Reserve implemented a series of interest rate hikes, with the rate peaking at 5.33 percent in August 2023, before the first rate cut since September 2021 occurred in September 2024. Financial implications for the Federal Reserve The expansion of the Fed's balance sheet and subsequent interest rate hikes have had significant financial implications. In 2023, the Fed reported a negative net income of 114.3 billion U.S. dollars, a stark contrast to the 58.84 billion U.S. dollars profit in 2022. This unprecedented shift was primarily due to rapidly rising interest rates, which caused the Fed's interest expenses to soar to over 281 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Despite this, the Fed's net interest income on securities acquired through open market operations reached a record high of 174.53 billion U.S. dollars in the same year.

Graph and download economic data for FOMC Summary of Economic Projections for the Fed Funds Rate, Central Tendency, Midpoint (FEDTARCTM) from 2025 to 2027 about projection, federal, rate, and USA.

As of October 16, 2024, the yield for a ten-year U.S. government bond was 4.04 percent, while the yield for a two-year bond was 3.96 percent. This represents an inverted yield curve, whereby bonds of longer maturities provide a lower yield, reflecting investors' expectations for a decline in long-term interest rates. Hence, making long-term debt holders open to more risk under the uncertainty around the condition of financial markets in the future. That markets are uncertain can be seen by considering both the short-term fluctuations, and the long-term downward trend, of the yields of U.S. government bonds from 2006 to 2021, before the treasury yield curve increased again significantly in 2022 and 2023. What are government bonds? Government bonds, otherwise called ‘sovereign’ or ‘treasury’ bonds, are financial instruments used by governments to raise money for government spending. Investors give the government a certain amount of money (the ‘face value’), to be repaid at a specified time in the future (the ‘maturity date’). In addition, the government makes regular periodic interest payments (called ‘coupon payments’). Once initially issued, government bonds are tradable on financial markets, meaning their value can fluctuate over time (even though the underlying face value and coupon payments remain the same). Investors are attracted to government bonds as, provided the country in question has a stable economy and political system, they are a very safe investment. Accordingly, in periods of economic turmoil, investors may be willing to accept a negative overall return in order to have a safe haven for their money. For example, once the market value is compared to the total received from remaining interest payments and the face value, investors have been willing to accept a negative return on two-year German government bonds between 2014 and 2021. Conversely, if the underlying economy and political structures are weak, investors demand a higher return to compensate for the higher risk they take on. Consequently, the return on bonds in emerging markets like Brazil are consistently higher than that of the United States (and other developed economies). Inverted yield curves When investors are worried about the financial future, it can lead to what is called an ‘inverted yield curve’. An inverted yield curve is where investors pay more for short term bonds than long term, indicating they do not have confidence in long-term financial conditions. Historically, the yield curve has historically inverted before each of the last five U.S. recessions. The last U.S. yield curve inversion occurred at several brief points in 2019 – a trend which continued until the Federal Reserve cut interest rates several times over that year. However, the ultimate trigger for the next recession was the unpredicted, exogenous shock of the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, showing how such informal indicators may be grounded just as much in coincidence as causation.

House prices grew year-on-year in most states in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2024. The District of Columbia was the only exception, with a decline of three percent. The annual appreciation for single-family housing in the U.S. was 0.71 percent, while in Hawaii—the state where homes appreciated the most—the increase exceeded 10 percent. How have home prices developed in recent years? House price growth in the U.S. has been going strong for years. In 2024, the median sales price of a single-family home exceeded 413,000 U.S. dollars, up from 277,000 U.S. dollars five years ago. One of the factors driving house prices was the cost of credit. The record-low federal funds effective rate allowed mortgage lenders to set mortgage interest rates as low as 2.3 percent. With interest rates on the rise, home buying has also slowed, causing fluctuations in house prices. Why are house prices growing? Many markets in the U.S. are overheated because supply has not been able to keep up with demand. How many homes enter the housing market depends on the construction output, whereas the availability of existing homes for purchase depends on many other factors, such as the willingness of owners to sell. Furthermore, growing investor appetite in the housing sector means that prospective homebuyers have some extra competition to worry about. In certain metros, for example, the share of homes bought by investors exceeded 20 percent in 2024.

The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09 was a period of severe macroeconomic instability for the United States and the global economy more generally. The crisis was precipitated by the collapse of a number of financial institutions who were deeply involved in the U.S. mortgage market and associated credit markets. Beginning in the Summer of 2007, a number of banks began to report issues with increasing mortgage delinquencies and the problem of not being able to accurately price derivatives contracts which were based on bundles of these U.S. residential mortgages. By the end of 2008, U.S. financial institutions had begun to fail due to their exposure to the housing market, leading to one of the deepest recessions in the history of the United States and to extensive government bailouts of the financial sector.

Subprime and the collapse of the U.S. mortgage market

The early 2000s had seen explosive growth in the U.S. mortgage market, as credit became cheaper due to the Federal Reserve's decision to lower interest rates in the aftermath of the 2001 'Dot Com' Crash, as well as because of the increasing globalization of financial flows which directed funds into U.S. financial markets. Lower mortgage rates gave incentive to financial institutions to begin lending to riskier borrowers, using so-called 'subprime' loans. These were loans to borrowers with poor credit scores, who would not have met the requirements for a conventional mortgage loan. In order to hedge against the risk of these riskier loans, financial institutions began to use complex financial instruments known as derivatives, which bundled mortgage loans together and allowed the risk of default to be sold on to willing investors. This practice was supposed to remove the risk from these loans, by effectively allowing credit institutions to buy insurance against delinquencies. Due to the fraudulent practices of credit ratings agencies, however, the price of these contacts did not reflect the real risk of the loans involved. As the reality of the inability of the borrowers to repay began to kick in during 2007, the financial markets which traded these derivatives came under increasing stress and eventually led to a 'sudden stop' in trading and credit intermediation during 2008.

Market Panic and The Great Recession

As borrowers failed to make repayments, this had a knock-on effect among financial institutions who were highly leveraged with financial instruments based on the mortgage market. Lehman Brothers, one of the world's largest investment banks, failed on September 15th 2008, causing widespread panic in financial markets. Due to the fear of an unprecedented collapse in the financial sector which would have untold consequences for the wider economy, the U.S. government and central bank, The Fed, intervened the following day to bailout the United States' largest insurance company, AIG, and to backstop financial markets. The crisis prompted a deep recession, known colloquially as The Great Recession, drawing parallels between this period and The Great Depression. The collapse of credit intermediation in the economy lead to further issues in the real economy, as business were increasingly unable to pay back loans and were forced to lay off staff, driving unemployment to a high of almost 10 percent in 2010. While there has been criticism of the U.S. government's actions to bailout the financial institutions involved, the actions of the government and the Fed are seen by many as having prevented the crisis from spiraling into a depression of the magnitude of The Great Depression.

A graphic that displays the dollar performance against other currencies reveals that economic developments had mixed results on currency exchanges. The third quarter of 2023 marked a period of disinflation in the euro area, while China's projected growth was projected to go up. The United States economy was said to have a relatively strong performance in Q3 2023, although growing capital market interest rate and the resumption of student loan repayments might dampen this growth at the end of 2023. A relatively weak Japanese yen Q3 2023 saw pressure from investors towards Japanese authorities on how they would respond to the situation surrounding the Japanese yen. The USD/JPY rate was close to 150, whereas analysts suspected it should be around 90 given the country's purchase power parity. The main reason for this disparity is said to be the differences in central bank interest rates between the United States, the euro area, and Japan. Any future aggressive changes from, especially the U.S. Fed might lower those differences. Financial markets responded somewhat disappoint when Japan did not announce major plans to tackle the situation. Potential rent decreases in 2024 Central bank rates peak in 2023, although it is expected that some of these will decline in early 2024. That said, analysts expect overall policies will remain restrictive. For example, the Bank of England's interest rate remained unchanged at 5.25 percent in Q3 2023. It is believed the United Kingdom's central bank will ease its interest rate in 2024 but less than either the U.S. Fed or the European Central Bank. This should be a positive development for the pound compared to either the euro or the dollar.

Gold increased 393.93 USD/t oz. or 15.01% since the beginning of 2025, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Gold - values, historical data, forecasts and news - updated on March of 2025.

Silver increased 4.76 USD/t. oz or 16.49% since the beginning of 2025, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Silver - values, historical data, forecasts and news - updated on March of 2025.