Fed’s Williams: Slowing down on rate rises makes sense right now

Federal Reserve (Fed) Bank of New York President, as well as Vice Fed Chair, John Williams crossed wires via Reuters late Wednesday when he unveiled support for slowing down on the rate hike trajectory. The policymaker also showed his data dependency for future Fed decisions.

The voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) also unveiled his support for no rate change in June monetary policy meeting but marked surprise from the stable natural rate level.

It should be noted that the Fed Vice Chair Williams quoted remarkably “well-anchored” inflation expectations but cited that fate of inflation is up to the Fed.

Even so, Fed’s Williams marked the need for the US central bank to balance the demand and supply flow, indirectly suggesting higher rates ahead.

Key statements

I’m not content with where inflation is right now.

I see progress on inflation but price pressures still too high.

Economy still has strong demand for labor.

FX implications

Being the statements from one of the key Fed members, the markets reacted to the mostly hawkish comments by supporting the US Dollar, in hopes of higher rates from the US central bank. The same joins the upbeat FOMC Minutes to weigh on the EUR/USD, pressured at a weekly low of around 1.0850.

Also read: EUR/USD bears move closer to the edge of the abyss after FOMC minutes and ahead of a slew of key US data