In the spring of 2014, Mizuho Securities USA’s chief economist Steven Ricchiuto planted his flag for the projected date of the Federal Reserve’s first post-crisis rate hike in mid-2016, further into the future than any of his peers. Virtually alone among major Wall Street house economists at the time, Ricchiuto was skeptical of the conventional wisdom that lift-off would happen by the end of 2015. Up until Dec.