Currency Index: Minutes and Interest Rates

currency index: The minutes showed some conflict over the central bank's pace of raising interest rates at the meeting, when the Fed raised interest rates for only the second time in the past decade, according to Market Watch. The Fed has said the pace of hikes would be gradual, though the minutes indicated that many Fed officials thought a measured pace of increases was under threat. While the dollar had already been weaker against its major rivals, it extended its decline following the release of minutes from the Fed's December meeting, with a key currency index dropping to its lows of the session. The officials pointed to a number of risks that, if realized, might call for a different path of policy than the currently expected, the minutes read. The Fed has penciled in three rate hikes in 2017, according to a plot of Fed members' forecasts for rates. Although there weren't big surprises in the minutes, some investors may have gotten ahead of themselves in terms of their predictions for the pace of future rate increases, said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at CMC Markets. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.