MNI BRIEF: Fed's Barkin Suggests QE Taper End Before Liftoff

Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin Monday said inflation has met the central bank's "substantial further progress" benchmark to begin pulling back on asset purchases and the labor market is "going to get there in relatively short order," adding that he'd prefer to see QE taper end before short-term interest rates are raised.

"You kind of would prefer to sequence them, because you don't really want to be buying assets and keeping rates low while you're raising rates," he said in Q&A at a Rotary Club of Atlanta event. "That's a sort of a mixed message. So to the extent it's feasible, you'd love to sequence them. They did sequence the last time" after the financial crisis in 2013 and 2014, said Barkin, who speaks at an MNI-hosted event on Tuesday.

Some former Fed officials have told MNI the Fed is likely to be pushed to raise interest rates before the bond-buying program is phased out completely. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard has said the Fed needs to have the option to speed up tapering if inflation comes in faster than anticipated.