Goldman Sachs analysts said in a weekend note that persistently high inflation is raising the risk that the Federal Reserve will move to tighten monetary policy more aggressively, with the Wall Street giant seeing a growing possibility of more than four interest rate hikes this year. The Fed’s most recent dot plot, which charts policymakers’ outlook on the path of future interest rate hikes and was released as part of the central bank’s revised December Summary of Economic Projections (pdf), projects three quarter-point rate increases in 2022. That would put the target federal funds rate within a range of 0.75 and 1.0 percent by the end of the year. But Goldman economist David Mericle wrote in a note cited by Seeking Alpha that sticky inflation will force the Fed into a faster tightening schedule that members of the Fed’s policy-setting body, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), currently project. “We …