Fed expected continue rate hikes

NEW YORK, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- The Federal Reserve has been raising U.S. interest rates with almost mechanical regularity since last summer but it's not finished, a survey says.

The Fed still has a way to go before ending its campaign of regular, quarter-point rate increases, according to a monthly survey of 56 private economists conducted by The Wall Street Journal Online.

On average, they believe the Fed will continue lifting rates until its target for the federal-funds rate, the bank's primary monetary-policy instrument, reaches 3.75 percent, up from the current 2.5 percent.

Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., says that would put rates within a "neutral" range of between 3.5 percent and 4.5 percent that neither stimulates nor inhibits economic growth.

The economists expect policy makers to raise the federal-funds rate to 3 percent by June and predict 3.75 percent by December.