... And Powell Signals Little Change To Guidance - Yet (3/3)

As for the Chair, Powell’s November press conference leaned slightly dovish but was overall quite balanced in MNI’s view, reiterating the Committee's tightening bias while setting a fairly high bar to an actual hike. MNI's review of the November meeting is here.

• He repeated previous themes in his intermeeting communications. His Dec 1 comments – as the pre-meeting blackout period began – were taken dovishly, in that he highlighted the idea that policy was “well into restrictive territory”, with risks becoming more balanced, and “welcome” inflation progress of late.
• However to our ear, his message was again more balanced, and we would highlight the following which will likely make it into the post-meeting press conference in some form or other: “it would be premature to conclude with confidence that we have achieved a sufficiently restrictive stance, or to speculate on when policy might ease. We are prepared to tighten policy further if it becomes appropriate to do so.”
• The main takeaway for the December FOMC meeting from the Dec 1 speech, which largely runs through his November press conference messages (with an update on the PCE inflation numbers), is that the Fed's forward rate guidance ("in determining the extent of additional policy firming that may be appropriate") was repeated by Powell and is unlikely to be substantially changed in the upcoming Statement.