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How Will Powell Characterize "Sufficiently Restrictive"?

FED

One of the keys to the press conference will be how Powell approaches the inevitable question on what is "sufficiently restrictive" in the amended guidance ("ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2 percent").

  • Remember in September's press conference he noted that rates had just entered territory that could be considered restrictive. Will he continue to stand by September's Dot Plot medians of 4.4% end-2022 and 4.6% end-2023 as sufficiently restrictive?
  • Another key question is how Powell characterizes December's decision. One guess is that he won't rule out another 75bp hike outright, again saying it's data dependent. That could be knee-jerk hawkish given the quick market pricing out of 75bp.
  • The statement changes were quite strange, and ambiguous enough to keep both the hawks and doves around the table satisfied until the next meeting. One could guess that the doves wanted to signal a more imminent downshift but this was something of a compromise. Nobody on the FOMC would disagree that monetary policy works with long and variable lags - but the doves have been increasingly vocal in seeing potential for a policy mistake.

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