The US Federal Reserve should be cautious on interest rate increases due to lingering risks to the US economy, one of its most influential policymakers yesterday said, appearing to signal that the chance of a hike by the end of the year was fading.
While New York Fed President William Dudley said it was “premature” to rule out a policy tightening this year, he added that negative shocks were more likely than positive ones due to the unknown fallout from Britain’s vote to leave the EU and a strong greenback.
“All three of these reasons — evidence that US monetary policy is currently only moderately accommodative, the fact that US financial conditions have been influenced by economic and financial market developments abroad, and risk management considerations — argue, at the moment, for caution in raising US short-term interest rates,” said Dudley, a close ally of Fed Chair Janet Yellen and a permanent voter on US policy.
The comments, including a reference to uncertainty around the Nov. 8 US election, suggested the central bank is leaning toward standing pat on rates until perhaps December — which would mark one year since it raised rates for the first time in nearly a decade.
Dudley applauded recent investor expectations for a less aggressive US tightening cycle going forward and warned that it was becoming increasingly clear that some post-crisis “headwinds” were likely to be permanent.
In an otherwise dovish speech to a joint New York Fed-Bank Indonesia conference in Bali, he said it was possible that the US economy would outperform expectations through year end, that financial conditions ease, or that other international risks fade.
“For these reasons, I think it is premature to rule out further monetary policy tightening this year,” he said in prepared remarks for the speech at a resort hotel.
If the economy and labor markets improve quickly, Dudley said, the Fed would react by raising rates sooner.
“If that all happens very quickly, I can definitely see the Fed raising interest rates even prior to the election possibly,” he said. “But if that all happens very slowly, then we’re going to go very slowly.”
Dudley was coy on just how many rate increases he envisioned, saying only that he expected the central bank to move at least more aggressively than current futures-market predictions for only one rate increase by the end of next year.
While the US central bank struck some confident tones in a policy statement last week, more recent data showing the US economy has expanded at an annual rate of roughly 1 percent so far this year emboldened those who think the Fed would not tighten monetary policy any time soon.
A Reuters poll of economists recently pointed to the December policy meeting as the most for an interest rate increase.
However, after weak US growth data on Friday, Fed funds rate futures are pricing in only about 30 percent chance of a rate hike by December, compared with about 50 percent early last week.
Dudley called the recent US GDP reading of 1.2 percent annualized growth for the second quarter as “sluggish,” but stuck to his expectation that the economy would rebound to about 2 percent growth over the next 18 months, an outlook he described as “positive” and “satisfactory.”
He also said he was confident inflation would rise to the Fed’s 2 percent goal in the medium term.
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