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Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, January 4th, and this is your

F.T. News briefing. The Federal Reserve reinforced that it's committed to hire for longer interest rates and

convertible bonds are having a moment.

Plus, convicts in Russia are being released early after fighting in Ukraine.

One of the most terrifying things of course is for victims, for example, of abuse at home, domestic abuse, where the victim is worried for her own safety or for their own

safety. I'm Sonia Hudson in for Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to

start your day. The Fed released the minutes from its December meeting yesterday.

Turns out that most officials wanted to keep interest rates high, quote, for some time.

Markets had priced in an interest rate cut as early as March.

These minutes might be a sign that's a little too optimistic.

But they also showed that most Fed officials did expect to cut rates sometime in 2024

and sounded more confident about inflation falling. There's a rare bright spot these days for corporate fundraising and it comes in the form of

convertible bonds. U.S. companies have

been diving head first into the market. Just take this stat. The issuing of

convertible debt increased by nearly 80 percent last year and the trend looks likely to

continue into this year. Here to explain why is the F.T.'s Harriet Clerfeld. Hi Harriet

Harriet. Hi, so first things first before we get into this,

what are convertible bonds?

That is a good question.

...