6/20/2017

BANKING/FED: “Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said Tuesday [6-20-17] that the U.S. central bank can wait until the end of the year before making the decision to raise rates again, while adding it could start reducing the size of its balance sheet before that.
‘We are now at a point where we can afford, having raised the rates twice [in 2017], we can wait a little bit’ to see if unexpectedly weak inflation over recent months starts to perk back up, Mr. Evans told a gathering of Wall Street Journal reporters. He said it is possible ‘we could wait until the end of the year’ and next move interest rates higher at the December meeting, if that is what the economy’s performance calls for.
‘We’ve had too many experiences’ of forecasting higher inflation only to see it fall short of expectations, Mr. Evans said as part of his argument that the Fed has time to decide on its next interest rate action.”

-Michael S. Derby, “Fed’s Evans Says Rate Rise Could Wait Until December,” The Wall Street Journal online, June 20, 2017 11:12am