Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson Q&A now:
- Fed has not changed its approach to monetary policy
- Fed is always thinking about the balance of risks
- Our goal has been to bring inflation down without causing undue or a disorderly increase in the unemployment rate
- Performance of labour market gave us headroom to keep policy restrictive for a long period
- Size of September rate cut was timely
- Fed’s rate cut was neither proactive or reactive
-
Important not to focus on narrow measures of inflation, labor
market - need to look at totality of the data
-
Fed aims to
create economy with inflation at 2% and employment as high as
possible -
if we do that, it will be possible for interest rates
to be normalized -
Fed can’t influence housing affordability
directly - takes time to bring inflation down
-
have been
making gradual but good progress in bringing down rate of housing
inflation
–
Again, Jefferson not really guiding on what is ahead for the Fed, apart from generic comments.
Earlier:
Fed Vice-chair Jefferson says will watch incoming data, making decision meeting by meeting
This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com. Source