Fed’s Brainard Says US Inflation Falling Short and Warns About Rate Hikes

September 5, 2017 Share Print 0

U.S. inflation is falling “well short” of target so the Federal Reserve should be cautious about raising interest rates any further until it is confident that prices are headed higher, an influential Fed policymaker said on Tuesday.

In a dovish speech in the face of months of weak inflation readings, Fed Governor Lael Brainard said the U.S. central bank should go so far as to make it clear it is comfortable pushing prices modestly above the Fed’s 2-percent target.

“We should be cautious about tightening policy further until we are confident inflation is on track to achieve our target,” Brainard, a permanent voter on monetary policy, said in a speech in New York.

“There is a high premium on guiding inflation back up to target so as to retain space to buffer adverse shocks with conventional policy,” she added. “I believe it is important to be clear that we would be comfortable with inflation moving modestly above our target for a time.”

via CNBC

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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.