MADRID, 30 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Federal Reserve of the United States (Fed), Jerome Powell, has offered this Wednesday a signal that the monetary authority will lift the foot of the accelerator with respect to the rises in interest rates next month, as is clear from his speech at an event organized in Washington.
The Fed is scheduled to hold its last monetary policy meeting on December 13-14. The rise in rates (known as the price of money) was guaranteed, although until now the doubt remained on the magnitude of said rise.
Of the seven monetary policy meetings that the Fed has held in 2022, it has decided to raise rates six times, with the sole exception of the January meeting. The last four meetings (June, July, September and November) resulted in four consecutive increases of 75 basis points.
“Monetary policy affects the economy and inflation with uncertain lags, and the full effects of our rapid tightening are far from being felt,” the US central banker has said.
“Therefore, it makes sense to ease the pace of our rate hikes as we approach a level of tightening that will be sufficient to tame inflation. The time to ease the pace of rate hikes could come at the earliest in the December meeting.” , Powell has anticipated.
In any case, the central banker has argued that the exact moment at which moderation occurs is “much less important” than the question of how much rates must rise to control inflation and how long it will be necessary to keep monetary policy in place. a restrictive level.
“It is likely that restoring price stability will require keeping policy tight for some time. History warns us against premature monetary policy easing,” he warned.
