Newsquawk

Fed's Williams (voter) "don’t have any preference of what we need to do at a future meeting, because I think it’s going to really going to be driven by the progress we’re making in managing those goals and managing those risks" when asked on September

Asked, Do you think that you need additional rate increases to achieve that? - responds: "I think that’s an open question, honestly. We definitely have a restrictive stance of monetary policy, real interest rates, both for now and you look at forward indicators such as one- to two-year yields, are well above what I think neutral is."

Adds, "I think that’s providing kind of downward pressure on demand, and on inflation through that, so I think we’ve got monetary policy in a good place, it is definitely restrictive, but we have to watch the data"

"I think — it’s not about having to tighten monetary policy a lot. To me, the debate is really about: Do we need to do another rate increase? Or not?" adds "Now, that could change, depending on the data. I think we’re pretty close to what a peak rate would be, and the question will really be — once we have a good understanding of that, how long will we need to keep policy in a restrictive stance, and what does that mean."

"Because we have monetary policy, in my view, in a restrictive stance and definitely influencing the economy in the right direction, I don’t feel we need to take immediate action or specific action."

On unemployment needing to rise to bring inflation down: "My own view is that the unemployment rate, in order to achieve all of that, may rise to something like 4 to 4.5 percent, but we’ll have to see."

When asked about the criteria for cutting rates next year, says "the main criteria that I’m thinking about in my forecast, is that really about with inflation coming down, needing to adjust interest rates with that so that we’re not inadvertently tightening policy more and more just because inflation is down."

When asked about QT, Williams noted "we’re well away from ending QT or anything like that. That’s well off in the future and everything is operating effectively."

Analysis details (10:10)

Interview was conducted on August 2nd.

07 Aug 2023 - 10:10- Fixed IncomeData- Source: NY Times