Two of the Federal Reserve’s most senior officials said in speeches this week that the central bank has time to weigh the economy before raising interest rates again, tamping down investor bets on an increase this month, Bloomberg reported.
In remarks delivered two days apart, Philip Jefferson, the Fed’s vice chair, and John Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, each said policymakers can afford to assess conditions before considering another increase. Neither ruled one out. Officials continue to say inflation is too high, and consumer price data due on Oct. 14 could play a large role in the debate.
Traders heard the message. Before Mr. Williams spoke on Tuesday, pricing in federal funds futures put the likelihood of an increase at the Fed’s Oct. 27-28 meeting at 70 percent. By the time Mr. Jefferson finished his speech on Thursday, those odds had fallen to about 25 percent, helped in between by softer-than-expected inflation data. The Fed last raised rates on Sept. 16, and bond yields had jumped since, sending borrowing costs sharply higher.
As head of the New York Fed, Mr. Williams holds a permanent vote on policy and by tradition is vice chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, a post long considered, alongside the chair and vice chair, part of the Fed’s leadership “troika” on monetary policy.
Under some past chairmen, investors treated comments from the vice chair or the New York Fed president as signals from the whole troika. There is no evidence Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Williams coordinated their speeches with each other or with Chairman Kevin Warsh, who has vowed to avoid telegraphing where rates are headed.
Goldman Sachs economists said the pair of speeches cemented their view that an October increase is unlikely, a conclusion others shared. “We think the joint message from Jefferson and Williams is authoritative,” Krishna Guha, head of economics at Evercore ISI, and his colleagues wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.