The Federal Reserve raised key U.S. interest rates a quarter-percentage point on Thursday for a ninth straight time and gave no sign a year-long campaign of increases was nearing an end. The U.S. central bank's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee unanimously voted to lift the benchmark federal funds rate -- charged on overnight loans between banks and intended to influence credit costs throughout the economy -- to 3.25 percent, as economists had expected. That pushes the fed funds rate to the highest level since mid-September 2001, though long-term bond yields remain stubbornly below where they stood when the rate-rise cycle began exactly one year ago. Policy-makers repeated that they expected to keep removing stimulus at a gradual or "measured" pace, wording generally taken to mean a continued course of smaller, quarter-point increases rather than bigger ones. Despite some recent signs of economic softness, partly induced by lofty energy prices, the Fed action indicated enough concern about the potential for rising prices to keep official rates on an upward trajectory for now. --More 2336 Local Time 2036 GMT
