New: Fed boosts rate 25 basis points -- but signals a "pause"

The decision Wednesday marked the Fed’s tenth consecutive rate increase aimed at battling inflation and will bring its benchmark federal-funds rate to a range between 5% and 5.25%, a 16-year high.

In a hint that officials could pause rate increases after the latest move, they cut a phrase from their previous policy statement, in March, that said some additional policy increases might be appropriate.

Instead, officials said in their new statement Wednesday they would monitor economic and financial-market developments and the effects of their earlier rate increases “in determining the extent to which additional policy firming may be appropriate to return inflation to 2% over time.”

[Has the Fed done any due diligence on the impact to banks on their asset-liability ratios this time? Or should we expect another series of failures as bond values invert? — Ed]