Fed's Fischer: Rate Hikes Won't Come At Regular Intervals

The Federal Reserve will not follow a monetary policy of steady rate hikes that take no account of economic conditions, said Stanley Fischer, the vice chairman of the U.S. central bank. "I know of no plans of following a deterministic path to raise rates, I don't believe it will happen," Fischer said at a conference sponsored by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Instead, the Fed will take into account the behavior of the economy and "shocks we have to deal with." He said the Fed did not want to "telegraph every action." At the same time, he said the Fed "doesn't want to take the markets by surprise on a regular basis" and wanted investors to have a general sense of the Fed's plans.