Reuters
Fed’s Waller, citing “good news,” backs quarter-point increase at next meeting
(Reuters) -U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller, one of the leading inflation hawks and an advocate last year of aggressive rate increases, supports scaling back to quarter-point rate hikes at the Fed’s next meeting, all but cementing another step down in the pace of the central bank’s monetary tightening. “Based on the data in hand at this moment, there appears to be little turbulence ahead, so I currently favor a 25-basis point increase at the (Federal Open Market Committee’s) next meeting,” on Jan. 31-Feb. 1, Waller said in comments prepared for delivery at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He added that upcoming rate moves, coupled with an expected continued decline in inflation, left the central bank “pretty close” to an interest rate “sufficiently restrictive” to bring inflation under control – the benchmark policymakers have used for considering a pause to further rate increases.