Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said he’d like to “avoid having to take further action” on interest rates. Though, he’s going to “have an open mind about taking action over the next number of months if we need to.”
He added “even though the consumer is very strong and a key underpinning to the economy, manufacturing sector is weak and probably weakening and global growth decelerating is probably finding its way to seep into the U.S. economy.” There are “downside” risks to Fed’s GDP growth forecast of 2% this year.
Regarding yield curve inversion, Kaplan said “I’m more focused on the fact that the whole curve has moved down over the last three and a half months and the Fed funds rate at two to two and a quarter is now above every rate along the curve which to me is a bit of a reality check that says it’s possible our monetary policy stays a little tighter than I would have thought three or four months ago.”
