Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated yesterday, “The disinflationary process, the process of getting inflation down, has begun and it’s begun in the goods sector. But it has a long way to go. These are the very early stages of disinflation.”
Regarding last week’s surprisingly strong non-farm payroll data, Powell said, “it is good that we have seen a very strong labor market”, and “we didn’t expect it to be this strong.”
But he declined to comment directly on whether the job data would affect the 25bps hike path. Powell said the data “shows you why this will be a process that takes a significant period of time,” when it comes to tightening monetary policy.
