Christopher Waller, Governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve, during a Fed Listens event in Washington, DC, on Friday, September 23, 2022.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller signaled Monday that future rate cuts will be less aggressive than September’s big move. He expressed concern that the economy could still turn faster than desired.
Citing recent reports on employment, inflation, gross domestic product and income, the policymaker indicated that “the data indicate that the economy may not be slowing as much as desired.”
“While we do not want to overreact to or overlook this data, I see the data as a whole as a sign that monetary policy should proceed with more caution on the pace of rate cuts than was necessary at the meeting in September,” Waller said in a speech. prepared remarks for a conference at Stanford University.
The Federal Open Market Committee took the unusual step of cutting the base rate by half a percentage point, or 50 basis points, to a target range of 4.75%-5.0% at its September meeting. Historically, the Fed has only done so in times of crisis because it prefers to move in increments of a quarter of a percentage point, or 25 basis points.
Along with the cut, officials indicated there would likely be another half-point cut in the final two meetings of 2024, along with another full percentage point of cuts in 2025. However, Waller has not committed to a specific future path.
“Whatever happens in the short term, my baseline is that the policy rate should be reduced gradually over the coming year,” he said.
The Fed’s headline data has been mixed in recent days, with the labor market posting stronger data in September after weakening over the summer, the consumer price index inflation gauge slightly higher than expected, and GDP also remaining strong.
In the latest revision for second-quarter growth, the Commerce Department also raised the level of gross domestic income growth to 3.4%, an adjustment of 2.1 percentage points from the previous estimate and closer to GDP . The savings rate was also adjusted much higher, to 5.2%.
“These revisions suggest the economy is much stronger than previously thought, with little evidence of a major slowdown in economic activity,” Waller said.