most treasury yields turned higher on wednesday with the policysensitive 2year rate finishing the new york session at an almost twoweek high after federal reserve chairman jerome powell told reporters that it is very premature to be thinking of a pause in interest rate hikes as expected federal reserve officials raised their benchmark interest rate target on wednesday by another 75 basis points to a range between 375 to 4 yet they added new language that said they would take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy and lagged impact of their actions among other things in considering the pace of future increasesin a postmeeting press conference fed chairman jerome powell reiterated that it will be appropriate at some point to slow the pace of rate increases which might occur at policy makers december or januaryfebruary meeting still officials still have some ways to go and their decisions will be made on a meetingbymeeting basis he said our overarching focus is to bring inflation back to the feds 2 goal and to keep expectations wellanchored powell said we will stay the course until the job is done and it is very premature to be thinking about a pause in rate hikes see fed approves another jumbo interestrate hike adds dovish language on way forward many investors had been hoping that the fed would signal it is prepared to decelerate its pace of monetary tightening in coming months to allow its previous hikes to take effect the central bank has swiftly driven its benchmark rate up from almost zero this year as it seeks to damp inflation running near 40year highs ahead of the feds decision data released on wednesday showed that us private payrolls rose by 239000 in october beating the 195000 estimated gain seen by economists polled by the wall street journal the us labor departments nonfarm payrolls numbers for october on friday in addition the us treasury department said on wednesday that it has been talking to bond market participants about the potential uses for buybacks but made no decision on whether to begin buying back some of its older debt nervousness around potential sharp shifts in bond yields along with concerns about meager market liquidity left the ice bofaml move index a gauge of expected treasury volatility hovering near 13year highs earlier on wednesdaystock market today live coverage of mondays market action what analysts are saying the 75bp hike was as expected but the change in the feds statement in the third paragraph emphasizes two things we already knew they will raise rates as high as it takes to fight inflation and theyll take into account the nature of monetary policy when they set rates accordingly fhn financial senior economist will compernolle wrote in an email to marketwatchthe addition is then somewhat of a mystery for now though it could be communicating to markets that a slowdown in hikes does not necessarily mean a lowerthanexpected terminal rate he said