The 'dots' signal that rate hikes are coming

The Federal Reserve just released its most recent statement on monetary policy.

In addition to the statement, the FOMC released its projections on where it thinks the economy will be heading in the next few years.

The dot plot, part of the FOMC's Summary of Economic Projections released with the policy-decision statement, shows where each participant in the meeting thinks the federal funds rate should be at the end of the year for the next few years and beyond.

While the dot plot is not an official policy tool, it provides some insight into how the committee members feel about economic and monetary conditions going forward.

The new dot plot shows that all 17 members expect that the appropriate federal funds rate for the end of 2015 should be under 1%, with the median member seeing rates between 0.5% and 0.75%. That would appear to signal an end to zero-interest-rate policy, and thus rate hikes later this year.

The last dot plot, from March, was also relatively dovish. The median FOMC member saw rates at the end of 2015 being between just 0.5% and 0.75%.

Here's the new dot plot:

And here's the last dot plot, from March: