Federal Reserve officials backed another interest-rate increase as they monitor economic fallout from bank strains, while fresh emergency loan data showed financial stress continues to linger.
(Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve officials backed another interest-rate increase as they monitor economic fallout from bank strains, while fresh emergency loan data showed financial stress continues to linger.
Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, typically among the more hawkish of policymakers, said she favored getting rates above 5% because inflation was still too high.
But she tempered that message by arguing prudence was also needed because tighter credit conditions could cool hiring and spending.
“We are much closer to the end of the tightening journey than the beginning,” she told an audience in Akron, Ohio on Thursday. “How much further tightening is needed will depend on economic and financial developments and progress on our monetary policy goals.”
Data released after her remarks showed banks increased emergency borrowings from the Federal Reserve for the first time in five weeks.
Policymakers lifted borrowing costs by a quarter point last month, bringing the target on their benchmark rate to a range of 4.75% to 5% from nearly zero barely 12 months ago.
They also projected they would hike once more this year, to 5.1%, according to their median forecast — a move that investors bet they will deliver at their upcoming May 2-3 meeting.
Some Fed officials have said they’d like to pause at that point, though investors are pricing rate cuts by the end of the year.
Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic is one such policymaker, and he repeated that message at separate remarks in Melbourne, Florida.
Asked if he stilled backed a “one and done” rate-hike approach, he said “it is my view,” and noted that policy works with a lag.
“Once we get to this point, we’ll have moved firmly into restrictive space. And then I think it’s time for us to let the restrictive action work its way through. And that will take some time,” he said.
Neither he nor Mester vote on monetary policy this year.
Philadelphia Fed chief Patrick Harker, who does vote on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee in 2023, had a similar message.
“I anticipate that some additional tightening may be needed to ensure policy is restrictive enough to support both pillars of our dual mandate,” he told an event organized by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia later on Thursday evening.
“Once we reach that point, which should happen this year, I expect that we will hold rates in place and let monetary policy do its work,” Harker said in his prepared remarks.
Fed officials have welcomed signs their aggressive tightening campaign is beginning to bite, with the housing sector cooling, a tight labor market moderating and inflation retreating from last year’s peaks.
They also continue to warn price pressures remain too high and are proving stubborn, requiring additional policy tightening to squeeze them out of the system.
But that hawkish message has been softened in the aftermath of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last month, forcing regulators to step in to prevent contagion.
The aftermath is tightening access to credit, which has the same effect as hiking rates and could mean the Fed will have to do less.
“I expect to see tighter credit conditions for households and businesses that may slow economic activity and hiring,” Harker said. “But the full extent is still unclear.”
–With assistance from Catarina Saraiva.
(Updates with Harker comments in final paragraph.)
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