Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said she supports raising interest rates next month and tightening policy at a faster pace if needed to curb inflation. “I believe it will be appropriate to move the funds rate up in March and follow with further increases in the coming months,” Mester said Thursday in prepared remarks for a virtual event hosted by the New York University Stern Center for Global Economy and Business. “If by mid-year, I assess that inflation is not going to moderate as expected, then I would support removing accommodation at a faster pace over the second half of the year.” During their January meeting, Fed officials concluded that they would start raising rates soon from near zero and were on alert for persistent inflation that would justify a faster pace of tightening, according to minutes of the Jan. 25-26 meeting released Wednesday. Chair Jerome Powell told reporters after the meeting that officials were leaning toward moving next month to quell the hottest inflation in 40 years.
Source: The Bond Buyer

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said bringing down inflation may require the central bank to overshoot a neutral target interest rate, which he sees as about 2%. “If you wanted to put downward pressure on inflation, you’d actually have to get to neutral — go beyond neutral,” Bullard said at an event by hosted by Columbia University and SGH Macro Advisers in New York on Thursday. “And I think that’s a major concern of mine — we’re not really in a position to do that right now, but we have to get in a position to do that” in case inflation doesn’t moderate as expected, he said. Bullard repeated his view that Fed should raise interest rate by 100 basis points by July 1 and start balance-sheet run-off in the second quarter, in response to the fastest inflation in 40 years.
Source: The Bond Buyer