The Federal Reserve could be at the point where it doesn’t need to raise interest rates further, said Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker, on Tuesday.
“Absent any alarming new data between now and mid-September, I believe we may be at the point where we can be patient and hold rates steady and let the monetary policy actions we have taken do their work,” Harker said, in a speech to a breakfast sponsored by the Philadelphia Business Journal. Harker is a voting member this year on the Fed’s interest-rate committee.
In his remarks, Harker cautioned that he was not thinking about cutting interest rates.
“Should we be at that point where we can hold steady, we will need to be there for a while,” Harker said.
Harker said that he thinks the economy is “on the flight path to the soft landing we all hope for and that has proved quite elusive in the past.”
He said he expects the economy to grow at a rate that is “slightly slower than the 2.2% growth rate seen in the first half of the year.
Stocks
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were expected to open sharply lower on Tuesday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note
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fell below 4%.
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