Does Fed call mean zero forever?

When the Federal Reserve drove its target interest rate near zero in late-2008, it sparked an economic debate about the risks of having nowhere lower to go, and in particular the financial bubbles it might stoke.

Six years later few bubbles are in sight, but a new risk has emerged: that the zero has become an effective anchor on interest rates that is proving far more difficult to abandon than the Fed expected.

Three major central banks have hit the zero limit, the Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan. None have successfully escaped it and the ECB looks set to extend its money-printing programme.