Tausi Insider

The U.S. Federal Reserve may consider slowing the pace of rate increases at its next meeting but that should not be seen as a “softening” in its commitment to lower inflation, Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller said on Sunday. Markets should now pay attention to the “endpoint” of rate increases, not the pace of each move, and that endpoint is likely still “a ways off,” Waller said in response to a series of questions on monetary policy at an economic conference organized by UBS in Australia. “It depends on inflation.” “We’re at a point we can start thinking maybe of going to a slower pace,” Waller said, but “we’re not softening...Quit paying attention to the pace and start paying attention to where the endpoint is going to be. Until we get inflation down, that endpoint is still a ways out there.” A report released last week showing slower than expected inflation in October was “good news,” but was “just one data point” that would have to be followed with other similar readings t...

Christopher Waller, a key Federal Reserve official, added his voice Wednesday to a rising number of Fed officials who have suggested that the central bank will likely slow the pace of its interest rate hikes beginning in December. Waller, a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, said he was open to raising the Fed’s key rate by a half-point next month in light of evidence that inflation may be cooling. At each of its four most recent policy meetings, the central bank has raised its benchmark rate by an aggressive three-quarters of a point. The cumulative effect has been to make many consumer and business loans costlier and to raise the risk of a recession. At the same time, Waller stressed that inflation remains painfully high. And he cautioned that there have been occasions in the past when economists thought inflation was falling only to see prices reverse course and accelerate again. “The data of the past few weeks have made me more comfortable considering stepping down to a (hal...