Nov 1 Powell press
  • We are attentive to the increase in longer-term yields
  • Higher rates can have implications for monetary policy but would need to be persistent
  • Higher yields are being reflected in the market and having an effect on borrowing
  • It does not appear that policy expectations are driving rates
  • We have not made any decisions on future meetings
  • Going into the December meeting, we'll get 2 more jobs and inflation reports
  • Will look at all things into December but the idea that it's difficult to re-start hikes after stopping, it's just not true
  • Decision for today was this meeting only
  • The staff did not put a recession back into the forecast
  • We're not thinking about rate cuts or talking about rate cuts
  • The question we are asking is: Should we hike more?
  • We are proceeding carefully
  • It feels like the risks are more two-sided now around inflation
  • Labor demand is clearly very strong but we've seen supply of workers come online
  • It's not clear that the conflict in the Middle East is on track to have an economic impact on the USA

There was a dip in risk trades on the comments that kept December on the table. Did people really think that the Fed was going to explicitly move to the sidelines after +4.9% GDP?

Update: Evidently that was the dip to buy. S&P 500 now at the highs, up 1.3%.