St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said yesterday, “we want to get to neutral expeditiously, I guess is the word of the day. I’ve even said we want to get above neutral as early as the third quarter and try to put further downward pressure on inflation at that point.”
As for the May FOMC meeting, “more than 50 basis points is not my base case at this point,” he said. “I wouldn’t rule it out, but it is not my base case here.”
Bullard also reiterated that he would like to see interest rate at 3.50% by the end of the year. “You can’t do it all at once, but I think it behooves us to get to that level by the end of the year,” he said.