| Federal Reserve officials speed up their expected pace of policy tightening. China is quietly stepping up its interventions in markets. Biden and Putin both claim victory after Geneva meeting. Here's what you need to know to start your day. The U.S. Federal Reserve sees two rate hikes by the end of 2023. Officials signaled that the pace of the U.S. economic recovery from the pandemic is bringing forward expectations for how quickly they will reduce policy support. Fed chair Jerome Powell told a press conference that officials had begun a discussion about scaling back bond purchases and projected a faster-than-anticipated pace of tightening. Estimates for inflation for the next three years were upgraded. The central bank held the target range for its benchmark policy rate unchanged at zero to 0.25% — where it's been since March 2020. U.S. futures extended losses and Asia stocks looked set for a mixed start after the Fed's statement. Treasury yields jumped with the dollar. Futures were little changed in Japan and Australia, and pointed lower in Hong Kong. S&P 500 contracts slipped after the benchmark closed down, but off its lows after Fed Chair Jerome Powell downplayed the risk of an immediate rate increase. Ten-year Treasury yields jumped eight basis points, while five- and seven-year equivalents rose more as the market repriced the timing of rate increases. A dollar index had its biggest jump in a year. China is resorting to increasingly forceful measures to contain risks to the financial system, in moves that threaten to undermine President Xi Jinping's pledge to give markets greater freedom. Authorities have in recent weeks ordered state firms to curb their overseas commodities exposure, forced domestic banks to hold more foreign currencies, considered a cap on thermal coal prices, censored searches for crypto exchanges and effectively banned brokers from publishing bullish equity-index targets. A new rule will bar cash management products from holding riskier securities and limit their use of leverage. targeting risks at the micro level will likely continue. The problem is, if traders know authorities are likely to step in to limit gains or losses in an asset class, they can bet on that outcome with some certainty. Read the full story here. Both Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin claimed victory following the U.S.- Russia summit in Geneva. Biden said he wanted to meet the Russian leader to set some "rules of the road" in a relationship that has been eroding for years. He said he confronted Putin over cyberattacks on the U.S., Russia's treatment of democracy activists and the need to cooperate over nuclear weapons and the Arctic. Putin got one thing he craved — legitimacy on the international stage. But concrete accomplishments were hard to define. The world's biggest banks are struggling to remain attractive to junior bankers in Asia. Despite big names offering big financial incentives and quicker promotions, juniors in Asia's biggest hubs, are heading to the many fintech and investment firms that have sprouted up to tap the region's buoyant economies and swelling piles of wealth. Exits in Hong Kong have picked up despite annual pay raises of 25% to 30% since 2019. In Singapore, opportunities are sprouting at hedge funds and private equity firms as well as a new breed of fintech and digital banking companies. The exodus is challenging banks' expansion plans in a region that's growing faster than almost anywhere else. What We've Been ReadingThis is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours: And finally, here's what Tracy's interested in todaySo it's a hawkish surprise from the Federal Reserve and, in effect, potentially a very big gift to China, which has been struggling to contain yuan strength against the dollar and put a lid on rising commodity prices. The U.S. central bank did not opt to raise benchmark interest rates, but its new dot plot forecast showed two hikes now expected by the end of 2023. And while Fed Chair Jerome Powell was clearly keen to play down the importance of the rising dots, the question is whether talk of tapering and hikes is enough to start pushing the U.S. dollar higher. That's what happened back in 2014, when the Fed's dot plot last surprised to the upside by 50 to 75 basis points, as Ben Emons at Medley Global Advisors points out. "When the Fed communicates tapering and tightening in one message, and the economy is forecasted to be strong, real yields jump and those can transmit adversely for a strengthening dollar to foreign stock markets," he says.  A stronger dollar generally causes a lot of pain for much of the world (and might be especially painful in places which are still grappling with the coronavirus crisis). In the case of China, which has already begun winding down some of its monetary easing and has been trying to talk down resultant pressures in the yuan, as well as scale back some hot money flows into Chinese bonds, this could well be good news. You can follow Tracy Alloway on Twitter at @tracyalloway. | 
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