Dudley: Don't Rule Out Hikes
The New York Fed's William Dudley spoke Sunday on "The U.S. Economic Outlook and the Implications for Monetary Policy." He said, "All three of these reasons -- evidence that U.S. monetary policy is currently only moderately accommodative, the fact that U.S. financial conditions have been influenced by economic and financial market developments abroad, and risk management considerations -- argue, at the moment, for caution in raising U.S. short-term interest rates. So, directionally, the movement in investor expectations towards a flatter path for U.S. short-term interest rates seems broadly appropriate. That said, to my eye, market expectations derived from futures prices -- which price in about one 25 basis point rate hike through the end of 2017 -- appear to be too complacent. If the incoming information validates my view of the outlook, then I believe that U.S. monetary policy will likely need to move at a faster pace than implied by futures prices towards a more neutral posture as the labor market tightens further and U.S. inflation rises. Moreover, market expectations may be putting insufficient weight on the possibility that the economy could outperform our expectations, that financial conditions could ease, or that the risks to growth from Brexit and other international developments could fade away. If such events were to occur, this might necessitate a faster pace of adjustment. For these reasons, I think it is premature to rule out further monetary policy tightening this year. As I said before, it depends on the data, broadly defined, and, as we all know, that is not something one can predict with any accuracy."
