Fed Ushers in a New Era of Uncertainty on Rates Investors are weighing when Federal Reserve will start raising interest rates, but where they end up in long run also is a crucial question By Jon Hilsenrath Updated March 1, 2015 8:17 p.m. ET , WSJ It’s clear Fed officials think they’ll be raising short-term interest rates later this year. Of greater significance – and getting far less attention – is how high rates will go. Investors these days are obsessing over when the Federal Reserve will start raising short-term interest rates. Drawing less scrutiny is where rates will end up in the long run and how they’ll get there. But it’s time to start paying attention. Fed officials have made clear they expect to begin raising short-term interest rates from near-zero this year, though not before midyear. After that, there is great uncertainty at the central bank and in the markets about the future path of interest rates. The long-run outlook for rates has consequences for everyone. For households, it will determine payments on mortgages and car loans; for businesses, on corporate bonds; and for the government, on the $13 trillion in debt held by the public. A disconnect between the Fed and the market over the long-run rate outlook also could be a source of market turbulence in the months ahead. Central-bank policy makers on average see rates going nearly twice as high as futures markets indicate in coming years, for a variety of reasons. If the Fed is wrong, it might make a mistake on interest rates that jars the economy. If the market is wrong, it might be setting itself up for a tumble if rates go higher than expected. The Fed’s latest forecasts show that nine of 17 policy makers see the central bank’s benchmark interest rate—the federal funds rate—at 1.13% or higher by year-end. The median estimates—meaning half are above and half below—reach 2.5% for the end of 2016 and 3.63% for the end of 2017. On the other hand, in fed funds futures markets, where traders buy and sell contracts based on expected rates, the expected fed funds rate is 0.50% on average in December 2015, 1.35% in December 2016 and 1.84% in December 2017. One reason for the disparity: Futures prices reflect investors’ calculations that there is some probability rates will return to near-zero after a few increases and stay there. This happened in Sweden after its central bank raised rates in 2010 and in Japan after 2006. In both cases, the central banks had to reverse course and cut rates after economic shocks and deflation pressures crippled their economies. A survey by the New York Fed of Wall Street bond dealers in January showed they attached a 20% probability to U.S. short-term rates returning to zero within two years after liftoff. A return to zero isn’t the Fed’s expected outcome, so it doesn’t show up in its rate forecasts. Fed Ushers in a New Era of Uncertainty on Rates Investors are weighing when Federal Reserve will ...