Christmas Shoppers: Start Your Engines! Prime Rate Stays At 4.25%

Yup, you should have had all of your Christmas shopping done by now, but if you haven't, then the Wall Street Journal Prime Rate Blog has at least some good news for you: Earlier today, The Fed voted to keep their target rate @ 1.25 percent. This means that The Wall Street Journal Prime Rate will almost certainly stay at 4.25 percent. This also means that if you're going to be charging those Christmas gifts to your variable rate credit card(s), you won't have to worry about some added finance charge buzzkills once those credit card statements start rolling in.

Happy holidays to all from the WSJ Prime Rate Blog!

A snippet from today's press release by The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) follows:

"The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its target for the federal funds rate unchanged at 1-1/4 percent.

The Committee continues to believe that this accommodative stance of monetary policy, coupled with still robust underlying growth in productivity, is providing important ongoing support to economic activity. The limited number of incoming economic indicators since the November meeting, taken together, are not inconsistent with the economy working its way through its current soft spot.

In these circumstances, the Committee believes that, against the background of its long-run goals of price stability and sustainable economic growth and of the information currently available, the risks are balanced with respect to the prospects for both goals for the foreseeable future."