61% of Bloomberg terminal respondents (including me, by the way) see Fed hikes leading to recession.

Bond traders are stepping up wagers that the Federal Reserve will steer the US economy into a recession.

Policy-sensitive front-end Treasuries led a selloff Thursday, while longer-date bonds lagged, a day after Fed officials indicated that they’re prepared to raise interest rates by another half-point this year following the first pause in the central bank’s 15-month hiking campaign. That sent the yield-curve inversion, as measured by the gap between two- and 10-year securities, to 95 basis points — a level last sustained in March — and approaching this cycle’s 109-basis-point extreme.

The price action suggests bond traders are skeptical that policymakers can avoid a so-called hard landing as they continue to press the case for higher borrowing costs in an effort to get a handle on inflation that remains more than double their 2% target.

“The Fed runs the risk of solving one policy error of being too easy for too long with another policy error as they ignore the growing credit contraction and persistent losses from higher rates,” said George Goncalves, head of US macro strategy at MUFG. “The catch-22 is that for them to ease, something now has to break or the economy has to crack.”

It’s not just bond traders who are growing concerned.

Sixty-one percent of respondents in a Bloomberg poll of terminal users conducted in the hours after the Federal Open Market Committee decision said tighter monetary policy will ultimately cause a recession at some point in the next year.

“The Fed was clearly trying to send a hawkish message that they are not quite done yet and don’t think they have made enough progress on inflation,” said Michael Cudzil, portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co. “You see curve flattening and rates not pricing in the full extent of hikes, so the thinking is that these hikes may bite and the Fed is closer to the end.”

Officials left their target range for the federal funds rate unchanged at 5% to 5.25% Wednesday, but projected the key rate will rise to 5.6% by the end of this year, implying two more quarter-point increases, up from 5.1% in March. They also revised higher estimates of core inflation for year-end to 3.9%, from 3.6%, owing to what Chair Jerome Powell called surprisingly persistent price pressures.

Still, markets aren’t convinced borrowing costs will rise as high as central bankers project.

The highest rate on swap contracts for future meetings by early Thursday was around 5.32% for both September and November, with July at 5.27%, compared to a current Fed effective rate of 5.08.

The Fed’s aggressive outlook for rate hikes through year-end may be an effort to dash bond-market expectations for cuts in the months ahead, according to Michael de Pass, global head of linear rates at Citadel Securities.

While The Fed paused at their recent FOMC meeting, they are expected to raise their target rate at the July meeting …. then stop. Despite being only a little over 50% of where they should be (10.12%) to cool inflation.