Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said yesterday that “the appropriate path of policy is to stay where we are.” He added, “with the recent positive economic news, and with monetary and fiscal policy already accommodative, I see no need to make the current stance of monetary policy more accommodative in the near term.” It’s appropriate to “take a patient approach to considering any policy changes, unless there is a material change in the outlook.””Hopefully this is going to be a boring year for monetary policy”. He had penciled in no change in interest rate through 2020.
On the economy, he said ” it is unlikely we will have an economic downturn in the coming year, given the generally positive financial conditions and the continued accommodative monetary and fiscal policies… Plentiful jobs and growth in income have provided improvements in confidence and bode well for holiday sales and beyond… Fortunately for the economy, many consumers seem to be in a buying mood.”
Separately, Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan told Bloomberg that “we’re going to have weak manufacturing next year, sluggish global growth, pretty sluggish business investment, but with a strong consumer”. Still, “there would have to be some material change from that outlook” for him to back a rate change.
