Goldman Sachs expects the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates 4 times this year, in March, June, September and December, according to Bloomberg.

Rapid progress in the US labour market and hawkish signals in minutes from the Dec 14-15 Federal Open Market Committee suggest faster normalisation, Goldman’s Jan Hatzius said in a research note.

“We are therefore pulling forward our run-off forecast from December to July, with risks tilted to the even earlier side,” Hatzius said. “With inflation probably still far above the target at that point, we no longer think that the start to run-off will substitute for a quarterly rate hike. We continue to see hikes in March, June and September, and have now added a hike in December.”

US Federal Reserve officials indicated in the minutes of the December meeting that they are preparing to move faster than the last time they tightened monetary policy, in an attempt to prevent the US economy from deteriorating in light of high inflation and almost full employment.