Interest rate statement from Fed Chairman Powell

On the second day of his Semi-Annual Monetary Policy Report presentation to the US Congress, Powell fielded questions from members of the US House Committee on Financial Services.

Repeating his keynote address to the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on the first day of his presentation at the beginning of the session, Powell made a brief impromptu addition to his speech.

“NO DECISION MADE”

Reiterating that they are ready to increase the pace of rate hikes if all the data shows that faster tightening is necessary, Powell said: “I stress that no decision has been made on this issue.” saying.

When asked about his approach to the March meeting, Powell responded that the number of JOLTS vacancies was announced today, the employment report will be announced on Friday, and data from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the producer prices (PPI) will be announced. next week are important and will be discussed.

“WE WILL NOT DO THIS UNTIL WE SEE THE DATA”

Emphasizing that such data will be important in his assessments, Powell said: “We didn’t make any decisions regarding the March meeting. We won’t do it until we see the data,” he said.

Saying they have looked at the data since January and the revisions in the November and December inflation data, Powell said the data shows that the final level of interest rates will be higher than expected.

According to data released today in the US, the number of JOLTS job openings was 10 million 824 thousand in January, exceeding market expectations.

Private sector employment in the country also increased by 242,000 people in February, exceeding market expectations. (AA)