Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Fed likely to preach patience on possible interest rate cuts

Policymake­rs might consider slashing amount only because inflation has fallen from peak of 9.1% in 2022

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Across the United States, many people are eagerly anticipati­ng the Federal Reserve’s first cut to its benchmark interest rate this year.

Prospectiv­e home buyers hope for lower mortgage rates. Wall Street traders envision higher stock prices. Consumers are looking for a break on credit card debt at record-high interest rates.

Not to mention President Joe Biden, whose reelection campaign likely would benefit from an economic jolt stemming from lower borrowing rates.

Yet Chair Jerome Powell and his fellow Fed officials are expected to play it safe when they meet this week, keeping their rate unchanged for a fifth consecutiv­e time and signaling that they still need further evidence that inflation is returning sustainabl­y to their 2% target.

The Fed’s cautious approach illustrate­s what’s unusual about this round of potential rate cuts. Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at Dreyfus-mellon and a former Fed economist, notes that the Fed typically cuts rates quickly as the economy deteriorat­es in an oftenfutil­e effort to prevent a recession.

But this time, the economy is still healthy. The Fed is considerin­g rate cuts only because inflation has steadily fallen from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022. As a result, it is approachin­g rate cuts the way it usually does rate hikes: Slowly and methodical­ly, while trying to divine the economy’s direction from often-conflictin­g data.

“The Fed is driving events, not events driving the Fed,” Reinhart said. “That’s why this task is different than others.”

The central bank’s policymake­rs had said after their last meeting in January that they needed “greater confidence” that inflation was cooling decisively toward their 2% target. Since then, the government has issued two inflation reports that showed the pace of price increases remaining sticky-high.

In most respects, the U.S. economy remains remarkably heathy. Employers keep hiring, unemployme­nt remains low, the stock market is hovering near record highs and inflation has plummeted from its highs. Yet average prices remain much higher than they were before the pandemic — a source of unhappines­s for many Americans for which Republican­s have sought to pin blame on Biden.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called “core” prices rose at a monthly pace of 0.4% in both January and February, a pace far higher than is consistent with the Fed’s inflation target. Compared with a year earlier, core prices rose 3.8% in February. Core prices are considered a good signal of where inflation is likely headed.

But in February, a measure of housing costs slowed, a notable trend because housing is among the “stickiest” price categories that the government tracks. At the same time, more volatile categories, like clothing, used cars and airline tickets, drove up prices in February, and they may well reverse course in coming months.

“Nothing about those two data prints made you feel substantia­lly better about” inflation reaching the Fed’s target soon, said Seth Carpenter, chief global economist at Morgan Stanley and also a former Fed economist. “But it’s not at all enough to make you change your view on the fundamenta­l direction of travel” for inflation.

Indeed, several Fed officials have said in recent speeches that they expect inflation to keep declining this year, though likely more slowly than in 2023.

The Fed also has built in some expectatio­n that price increases would ease only gradually this year. In December, it projected that core inflation would reach 2.4% by the end of 2024. That’s not far from its current 2.8%, according to the Fed’s preferred measure.

Wednesday, the Fed’s policymake­rs will update their quarterly economic projection­s, which are expected to repeat their December forecast for three rate cuts by the end of 2024. Still, it would take only two of the 19 Fed officials to change their forecast to one fewer rate cut for the central bank’s overall projection to downshift to just two rate cuts for 2024. Some economists expect that to happen, given that inflation has remained persistent at the start of this year.

 ?? ANDREW HARNIK THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his fellow Fed officials likely will not change the benchmark interest rate when the agency meets Wednesday. It could be the fifth conseucitv­e time the board has met without changing the rate.
ANDREW HARNIK THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his fellow Fed officials likely will not change the benchmark interest rate when the agency meets Wednesday. It could be the fifth conseucitv­e time the board has met without changing the rate.

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