As central bankers converge on a Wyoming mountain resort today for an annual conference on monetary policy, a couple of top Federal Reserve officials took the chance to renew a push for interest-rate hikes, citing improvement in employment and inflation, Reuters reports.
“The case is strengthening” for a rate hike, Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan told CNBC. “And you should conclude from that in the not-too-distant future … I think we’re moving toward being able to take another step.”
Kansas City Fed President Esther George, whose bank has hosted the conference here since 1978, had an even stronger message.
“I think it’s time to move,” she told Bloomberg TV.
The Fed raised interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade in December, but has kept them on hold since then on concern that headwinds from abroad and financial market volatility at home could hurt growth.
Recent strong readings on the labor market, and signs that inflation is finally beginning to pick up, have begun to encourage some policymakers that rates should rise, if not as soon as next month’s meeting then at least before the end of the year.
Investors are awaiting a speech on Friday by Fed Chair Janet Yellen for more definitive clues about the timing of a rate hike.
Not all Fed policymakers are on board for a rate hike soon. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, who is at Jackson Hole for the conference but is not doing TV interviews, has long called for patience in raising rates so as to give inflation a better chance of reaching the Fed’s 2% target sooner.
Traders currently put chances of a December rate hike at about 42%.
