Powell opens door for four rate hikes

Bloomberg

Jerome Powell opened the door to the Federal Reserve raising US interest rates four times this year as he acknowledged stronger economic growth may prompt policy makers to rethink their plan for three hikes.
“My personal outlook for the economy has strengthened since December,” the Fed chairman said in response to a question about what would cause the central bank to step up the pace of policy tightening. He then listed four events that are causing him to revise up his outlook.
“We’ve seen continuing strength in the labor market,” Powell told the House Financial Services Committee in his first hearing as Fed chief. “We’ve seen some data that will in my case add some confidence to my view that inflation is moving up to target. We’ve also seen continued strength around the globe, and we’ve seen fiscal policy become more stimulative.”
Powell is taking over the Fed at a time when the world’s largest economy may be shifting gear to faster growth and declining unemployment, though inflation remains below the central bank’s 2 percent goal. Adding to the momentum are tax cuts and spending increases agreed to by Republican lawmakers and signed by President Donald Trump.
Economists said the signal was clear. The economic outlook is improving, and the chairman used the testimony to invite policy makers to reassess their December forecast for three hikes this year.
“It was very, very clear signal that they are going to do a little bit more hiking this year than was in their dots in December,” said Seth Carpenter, a former senior Fed adviser who is now chief US economist at UBS Securities.
“The committee is going to have to come up with a credible argument that refutes the logic he laid out” for stronger growth and possibly a faster pace of tightening.
Powell’s remarks caused yields on US 10-year notes to jump to their highest levels of the day as they touched 2.92 percent after closing at 2.86 percent. Stocks slipped into losses, with the S&P 500 Index down 0.9 percent at 3:39 p.m. in New York.
Fed officials will submit fresh estimates for the economy and the number of rate increases warranted this year at their upcoming meeting on March 20-21. When pressed on how such an improving assessment would affect the path of interest rates, Powell said he wouldn’t “want to prejudge” the results of that exercise.