Fed Chair Says He Expects Slower Rate Increases to Continue
Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said on Thursday that he would expect to continue with a slower pace of interest rate increases after central bankers skipped raising interest rates in June for the first time in 11 policy meetings — but he didn’t rule out that officials could return to back-to-back rate moves.
“It may be that we don’t move for a meeting, and then move at a meeting,” Mr. Powell said.
Speaking at a conference in Madrid, he reiterated an assertion he made a day earlier that he wouldn’t take future rate increases at consecutive meetings “off the table.” But he added that he would expect a more patient approach to persist.
“We did take one meeting where we didn’t move, so that’s in a way a moderation of the pace,” he explained. “So I would expect something like that to continue, assuming the economy evolves about as expected.”
Mr. Powell noted, however, that the economy “has a tendency to do something different” than policymakers anticipate.
Source: The New York Times
