Yellen Says She will Do Her Very Best to Boost Economy

F ederal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen vowed on Wednesday to “do all that I can” to boost a U.S. economy where unemployment is too high and inflation is too low.

“The economy continues to operate considerably short” of the central bank’s objectives of full employment and stable prices, Yellen said at a swearing-in ceremony at the central bank in Washington.

“The economy is stronger and the financial system is sounder,” added Yellen, who succeeded Ben Bernanke on February 1. “We have come a long way, but we have farther to go.”

The brief comments were a broad reiteration of what she told two congressional committees last month: that the United States appears to be clawing its way back from the 2007-2009 recession but that the Fed is in no rush to tighten policy.

Speaking clear across the country, San Francisco Fed chief John Williams gave a more upbeat assessment of the economy, and suggested that rate hikes could come as soon as next year.

“My own view, based on my own forecast, is that it would be sometime around the middle of next year,” Williams told reporters after a speech to students at the University of Seattle. “It could be later or earlier, depending on how the economy does.”

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza