US central bank policy-makers are expected to pull the plug today on the cheapest credit in decades by raising official interest rates for the first time in four years.
Analysts universally expect the Federal Reserve's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee to move the federal funds rate a quarter percentage point upward from its current 1 per cent, which is its lowest level since 1958.
The FOMC began a two-day meeting yesterday afternoon and is to issue an announcement containing its decision on rates at about 1815 GMT today.
If there is scant suspense about the rate move, interest in the Fed's post-meeting statement is running high. Wall Street players will comb through the statement, examining each carefully chosen word for any change to the Fed's intention to keep further rate rises gradual, or "measured" - language taken to mean a series of quarter-percentage point increases rather than those half a percentage point or larger.
Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said in London at the beginning of the month that the central bank was ready to "do what is required" to stem any upsurge in price pressures.
With the US economy growing smartly - fast enough to generate 1.2 million new jobs this year - there is some worry that prices and wages could begin accelerating at a pace that forces the Fed to play "catch-up" by pushing rates up sharply.
Some economists see energy cost rises as temporary and believe booming overseas economies like China's will slow and reduce price pressure on commodities. However, there is also some concern that the US economy may be on a growth course that will sow its own inflationary seeds by stimulating wage and price rises.
Rates have already risen in bond and other markets in anticipation of the Fed's action and Bush administration officials have played down any possibility they will dampen a burgeoning recovery.