Top ranking Federal Reserve officials indicated on Monday that rising yields on long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, which directly influence financing costs for households and businesses, could steer the Fed from further increases in its short-term policy rate and substitute the work done by financial markets for formal monetary policy moves by the central bank. "We are in a sensitive period of risk management, where we have to balance the risk of not having tightened enough, against the risk of policy being too restrictive," Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson said, nodding to the rise in U.S. Treasury yields and the need ... (full story)