Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Susan Collins gives 2023 Goldman Lecture in Economics, “Reflections on Policymaking Amidst (Pandemic) Uncertainty”.
Headlines via Reuters:
- Fed is at or near peak of rate hike cycle
- Further rate hike
could be warranted depending on incoming data - Expects Fed to keep
policy restrictive for some time - Policy must stay
restrictive until clear sign inflation moves to target of 2% - Optimistic
inflation can be tamed with ‘orderly slowdown,’ small jobless
rise - Policy patience will
give fed time to get read on economy - Main uncertainty is
measuring impact of past fed actions - Fed faces challenges
in extracting signal from economic data - Cooler core
inflation will need softer labor market - Too soon to say core
inflation on trend for 2% - Chance of a soft
landing has gotten higher for economy - As savings dwindle,
economy becoming more responsive to rate policy
I would have though some of these officials would be a little more circumspect given we get the latest CPI reading later on Thursday. Especially after the blow out PPI:
And then …
Is there a little bit of sleepwalking going on? I don’t want to be a curmudgeon but 2.2% vs. 1.6% and stocks continue merrily higher?
O
K
then …