Fed unlikely to redraw markers for rate hike

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal Reserve policymakers have cooled to the idea of explicitly raising the bar on future interest rate hikes, a sign the U.S. central bank is angling for a return to more subtle -- and familiar -- ways of explaining how it plans to steer the economy. The Fed, still struggling to boost the U.S. recovery from the Great Recession, remains intent on assuring investors that easy monetary policy is here for the long haul. Households and businesses, in the Fed's view, need low borrowing costs to get spending and investment back on a self-sustaining path. That's the reason the central bank took the unprecedented step last December of pledging to keep overnight interest rates near zero until unemployment falls to at least 6.5 percent, unless inflation threatens to rise above 2.5 percent.

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