As it is known, on Wednesday, the FED announced the final interest rate decision of 2023 and left the interest rates constant.
Speaking after the interest rate decision, FED Chairman Jerome Powell’s signal that there may be an interest rate cut in 2024 was received positively in the markets.
However, speaking today, FED member John Williams said that it is too early to talk about interest rate cuts.
Speaking to CNBC’s Squawk Box program, Williams stated that it is too early for the FED to start considering a rate cut from March as they are still evaluating whether the policy is restrictive enough to return inflation to 2%.
“I’m not talking about actually reducing interest rates in March. I’m just talking about thinking about reducing them. In this regard, I say that it is premature to think about reducing interest rates in March.
The question we need to think about, as Chairman Powell said, is: Have we moved monetary policy to a restrictive enough stance to get inflation back to 2%? This is the important question before us.”
Williams stated that the FED will continue to adhere to the data and that the FED is ready to tighten policy again if the downward trend in inflation reverses.
FED member Williams said, “We may be restrictive enough and appear to be close to our inflation target. But things can change.”
What we’ve learned over the last year is that if the data moves and inflation stops or reverses its advance, we need to be prepared to tighten policy further in surprising ways.
We are definitely seeing a slowdown in inflation. Monetary policy is working as intended. “But ultimately we must be confident that inflation will return to 2 percent in a sustainable manner,” he said.
While the FED member’s speech caused the Bitcoin price to retreat, BTC dropped a needle to $ 42,000.
Bitcoin hit its peak of $69,000 in November 2021, when the FED started increasing interest rates. Since the subsequent bear market is directly related to the FED’s interest rate increases, it is thought that a policy change here may return BTC to its old days.
*This is not investment advice.
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