JSE lifts as investors make sense of comments by US Fed

The JSE was firmer on Tuesday morning, while its global peers were mixed as investors weighed the prospect of faster Federal Reserve policy tightening and the effect on global growth from the war in Ukraine

The Fed’s St Louis president, James Bullard, said the central bank needed to move quickly to raise interest rates to about 3.5% in 2022 with multiple half-point hikes, and that it shouldn’t rule out rate increases of 75 basis points. Fed chair Jerome Powell has said that a 50 basis-point increase is possible at the Fed’s next meeting. Comments by colleagues since then have hardened expectations they’ll make that move, as officials extend a hawkish pivot to curb the most severe inflation since 1981…