US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time since 2018

Re:US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time s... by trelane on Wednesday March 16, 2022 @03:52PM (#30703210)

Technically, it does not, raising 0.25% is always in relation to the existing value of the thing, so increasing a percentage by a quarter of a percent would mean increasing it by a quarter of a percent of its existing value.

On the other hand, "basis percentage points" means something absolute, not relative to the existing level.

Pedant out. :)

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Re:US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time s... by monktastic1 on Wednesday March 16, 2022 @04:20PM (#30703523)

The claim wasn't that "raising by 25 bps" should be interpreted the same as "raising by .25%", it was:

> 25 bps means 0.25%.

In a sense, that is technically correct: it does refer to .25% -- not of the current value but of the 100% value.

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Re:US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time s... by dmurray on Wednesday March 16, 2022 @04:28PM (#30703627)

While we're at it, we should remember that this isn't a unitless number although it's often confused for one.

Interest rates are being raised by .25% per year.

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Re:US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time s... by HWR_14 on Wednesday March 16, 2022 @04:09PM (#30703397)

Pedantry is useless.

It's very useful to know the difference between the two. It's similar to many other things where there are two concepts that people conflate into one word and then spend a long time complaining or creating humor about confusing the results.

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Re:US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time s... by trelane on Wednesday March 16, 2022 @03:53PM (#30703225)

Obligatory Jayne: "let's see... A quarter percent of nothing, carry the nothing, is.. nothing!"

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