New York Fed head says bank 'not talking about rate cuts now' to contradict Chair Powell

By Ovunc Kutlu

ISTANBUL (AA) - The president of the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Friday that bank officials are not talking about interest rate cuts at the moment, contrary to what Chair Powell said Wednesday.

"We aren’t really talking about rate cuts right now,” John Williams told CNBC's Squawk Box. "We’re very focused on the question in front of us ... we gotten monetary policy to sufficiently restrictive stance in order to ensure the inflation comes back down to 2%."

Fed Chair Powell, however, in his post-meeting press conference on Wednesday, said the question of lowering interest rates has started “to come into view” and it was discussed by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members during this year’s last meeting that concluded on Wednesday.

Williams, on the other hand, said the Fed will continue focusing on the incoming macroeconomic data to see if softening inflation could reverse course, and if that happens the bank could raise rates again.

"One thing we’ve learned even over the past year is that the data can move and in surprising ways, we need to be ready to move to tighten the policy further, if the progress of inflation were to stall or reverse," he said.