Two regional Federal Reserve presidents said they did not support this week’s interest rate cut, highlighting why US central bank chair Jay Powell warned on Wednesday that another move in December was far from a “foregone conclusion”.
Dallas Fed president Lorie Logan and her counterpart at the Cleveland Fed, Beth Hammack, said on Friday they would have kept interest rates on hold, instead of cutting the federal funds target range by a quarter point to 3.75-4 per cent.
“I would have preferred to keep rates steady,” said Hammack, adding that she was concerned that price pressures were “broad based”, reflecting higher electricity prices and insurance costs, along with US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.