Traders see Fed raising rates in July 2015

(Reuters) - U.S. short-term interest-rate futures contracts fell Wednesday after the Federal Reserve renewed its low-rate pledge, prompting traders to add to bets the U.S. central bank will wait to raise interest rates until the second-half of 2015. The contracts show markets are now assigning a roughly 74 chance of a first Fed rate hike in July 2015, based on CME FedWatch, which tracks rate hike expectations using its Fed funds futures contracts. Traders had earlier seen July 2015 as holding a 69 percent chance of rate hike. The Fed has targeted short-term rates of between zero and 0.25 percent since December 2008, and on Wednesday reiterated it will keep rates near zero for a "considerable time" after it ends its bond-buying stimulus next month. (Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Diane Craft)