Multiple voices out of the Federal Reserve this week have made clear the central bank has no plans to cut rates next year, despite markets pricing it in. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly is among those cautioning against a Fed pivot in policy.
“I see us as raising to a level that we believe is restrictive enough to bring inflation down and then holding it there until we see inflation truly get close to 2%,” Daly said during a Bloomberg interview.
With stocks in a downturn and world economies teetering on the edge of recession, the Fed has been getting pressure on multiple sides to slow down its aggressive rate hike campaign. Since March, the Fed has hiked the federal funds rate by 3% from near zero, to a target rate of 3%-3.25% in September. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said during a speech this week at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research that he’d like to see it reach 4% to 4.5% by the end of 2022.
Skyrocketing Fed rates have sent mortgage rates to 16-year highs, with mortgage demand falling to 25-year lows. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 6.75% this week. Lending is sputtering across all sectors in the U.S.
Also this week, a United Nations agency warned that central bank actions are pushing the world into recession.
“The current course of action is hurting the most vulnerable, especially in developing countries and risks tipping the world into global recession,” UN Conference on Trade and Development Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan said in a report.
Despite the pressure, Fitch Ratings Chief Economist Brian Coulton told Straight Arrow News global repercussions are unlikely to sway the Fed.
“To not tighten monetary policy as much as they feel they need to – to achieve that outcome in the United States – because of what’s happening in the Chinese currency or what’s happening in emerging markets…I don’t think they would be prepared to take that risk,” Coulton said.
The singular focus, he said, is inflation. Consumer prices rose 8.3% on the year in August with September’s data due next week.
