Traders keep bets on first Fed rate hike in December

(Reuters) - U.S. short-term interest-rate futures contracts added to losses on Friday as Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen signaled the U.S central bank was on track to raise rates this year as a disappointing start to 2015 gives way to a stronger economy. The futures contracts show that traders see a 61 percent chance that the first Fed rate hike will come this December, based on CME FedWatch, which tracks rate hike expectations using its Fed funds futures contracts. That is about the same probability for a year-end rate hike that traders saw just before Yellen's speech. Earlier this week, traders had seen as little as a 49 percent chance of a December rate hike. The Fed has kept short-term rates near zero since December 2008. (Reporting by Ann Saphir\; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)