Feds Mester says:
- Inflation is still too high
- Fed Bank has more work to do
- Federal need to hike policy rate to over 5% and hold there for a while
- Fed is much closer to the end of rate hike journey
- Sees welcome progress in balancing demand and supply in economy
- Watching to see impact of tighter financial conditions on economy
- How financial conditions evolve could influence future rate hike view
- Stresses in banking sector have eased, but fed will act if needed
- Expect to see meaningful progress in lowering the inflation in this year
- Expect inflation to ease to 3.75% this year
- Job market strong, expects unemployment rate to rise to 4.5% – 4.75%
The comments are congruent with the ones that she made on April 4
looking at the US stock markets they are little changed from her comments:
- Dow industrial average -86.70 points or -0.26%
- S&P index -18.5 points or -0.44%
- NASDAQ index -52.81 points or -0.43%
looking at the US yield curve:
- 2 year yield remains down around 10 basis points at 4.161%
- 5 year yield 3.624% -9.7 basis points
- 10 year yield 3.526% -7.6 basis points
- 30 year yield 3.73% -5.9 basis points
