Fed’s Kashkari Won’t Rule out Chance of Rate Hikes
“The odds of us raising rates are quite low, but I don’t want to take anything off the table.”
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said the U.S. central bank’s policy stance is restrictive, but policymakers haven’t entirely ruled out additional interest rate increases.
“I don’t think anybody has totally taken rate increases off the table,” Kashkari said Tuesday at an event in London. “I think the odds of us raising rates are quite low, but I don’t want to take anything off the table.”
Kashkari echoed remarks he made earlier Tuesday in an interview on CNBC, when he said officials should wait for more evidence that inflation is cooling before cutting interest rates, especially given the strong labor market and resilient economy.
“Wage growth is still quite robust relative to ultimately what we think would be consistent with the 2 percent inflation target,” he said. “We have time to assess how much downward pressure we are putting on demand” before making any new policy decisions.
Responding to audience questions, Kashkari said he hasn’t gained confidence in the disinflationary process since the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) met in March, when he projected two rate cuts before year’s end.
“I want to get all the data I can get before the next FOMC meeting before I reach any conclusions,” he said. “But I can tell you this, it certainly won’t be more than two cuts.”
Fed policymakers are widely expected to keep interest rates at a 23-year high when they next meet June 11 and 12 in Washington, D.C.
Kashkari also said he didn’t believe that growth would need to slow and unemployment rise to bring inflation back to the Fed’s 2 percent target. A new inflation report from April is due out Friday, and economists expect the Fed’s preferred gauge of underlying inflation to show some relief in the data.
Speaking at the Barclays-CEPR International Monetary Policy Forum, Kashkari pointed to stress within the commercial property market as a continuing risk for the U.S. economy. He expects “big losses” in the sector and said there will likely be surprises in where the losses take place.
On the recent decision by Fed policymakers to slow the pace at which they’re shrinking the central bank’s balance sheet, Kashkari said that shouldn’t be interpreted as an end to that process.
“We just want to slow things down a little bit so we have time to monitor those market signals, but it’s not going to end up changing the destination,” said Kashkari, who doesn’t vote on monetary policy this year.
Fed officials have pledged to trim the balance sheet to the point where reserves are merely “ample,” while trying to avoid stress in money markets.
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