Volatility had picked up sharply in financial markets, and there had been falls in the prices of many risky assets and marked rises in short and longer-term interest rates, as participants sought to interpret comments by policymakers about the future stance of US monetary policy and the prospects for an easing in the rate of asset purchases by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The paths implied by market instruments for policy rates in many advanced economies had moved up sharply. Rates on overnight index swaps (OIS) three years forward had risen by around three quarters of a percentage point in the United ... (full story)