Comments from the Atlanta Fed’s Dennis Lockhart are out on Reuters and like most central bankers he refuses to ride the wave of market optimism. He starts by saying that the worst of the downturn is behind us and that the US economy is in the early stages of recovery. Lockhart highlights the risk that the weakness in commercial real estate as a potential risk to recovery, something that the market currently ignores happy to focus solely on the consumer side. He doesn’t seem to be a fan of further stimulus as he says this would boost the deficit. Moving on to rates he says that he agrees with the FOMC plan to keep rates low for an extended period to boost activity. He remains relatively sanguine on inflation noting that core prices have drifted lower.