Fed not thinking about rate cuts right now at all: Jerome Powell
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell dashed any hopes for a rate cut in the near future and said that the central bank is not «at all» thinking of the possibility currently.
This comes as the Fed chose to hold off on an interest rate hike for the second straight month.
At the Fed's post-meeting press conference, Powell said the Fed's monetary policy committee «is not thinking about rate cuts right now at all.»
«We are still very focused on the first question, which is, have we achieved a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to bring inflation down to 2 per cent over time,» he said.
The idea of a future interest rate cut doesn't come up in meetings right now, Powell said.
The Federal Reserve said it would keep interest rates between 5.25 per cent and 5.5 per cent, and amended language in its post-meeting statement to say that «economic activity expanded at a strong pace in the third quarter.» Previously, Fed officials wrote that the economy had grown at a «solid pace.»
After the Fed is confident that it has successfully tamped down inflation, Powell said the committee will then have to deliberate how long to keep interest rates elevated before they begin considering rate cuts, according to CNN.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell further said that he likes what he's seeing on the wage growth front: a steady and gradual easing.
«Wage increases have really come down significantly over the course of the last 18 months, where they are substantially closer to a level that would be consistent with 2 per cent inflation over time,» CNN quoted Powell as saying.
He also noted that a variety of gauges have shown similar trends.
Meanwhile, data released earlier this week showed that the Employment
