The Fed chair is looking for confirmation of last year’s low inflation readings
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will continue to seek confirmation inflation is moving closer to the central bank’s 2% target, even after a recent spate of hotter inflation readings.
“The other thing is, in the second half of the year, you had some pretty low readings, so it might be harder to make that 12 month window forward,” Powell said.
“Nonetheless, we’re looking for data that confirm the low readings that we had last year,” Powell continued. “And give us a higher degree of confidence that what we saw was really inflation moving sustainably down to 2%.”
— Sarah Min
Strong hiring wouldn’t push Fed to delay rate cuts, Powell says
Continued strength in the labor market wouldn’t be a reason to hold off lowering interest rates, said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
“Strong hiring in and of itself would not be a reason to hold off on rate cuts,” he said, adding that the job market by itself is not cause for concern around inflation. Earlier, Powell said “an unexpected weakening in the labor market could also warrant a policy response.”
— Alex Harring
Higher inflationary data hasn’t changed its overall trend downward, Powell says
Major inflationary data points — the consumer price index and personal consumption expenditure — rose for both January and February. Fed Chair Jerome Powell thinks this data is just further proof of inflation’s nonlinear path downwards.
“I think they haven’t really changed the overall story, which is that of inflation moving down gradually on a sometimes bumpy road toward 2%,” he said during a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. “We’re not going to overreact to these two months of data, nor are we going to ignore them.”
— Lisa Kailai Han
Powell needs a ‘good reason not to cut rates,’ says Principal Asset Management’s Seema Shah
In response to the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold rates steady, Principal Asset Management’s chief global strategist…
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