MNI BRIEF: Powell-Fed May Already Be Sufficiently Restrictive

It will take a few months of data for Federal Reserve officials to determine whether their monetary policy is already at the "sufficiently restrictive" level needed to bring down inflation back to 2%, but the Fed may be close to that level or already there, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday.

"We may not be far off we may possibly be even at that level," Powell said. "Policy is tight. I think real rates are probably -- you can calculate them many different ways but one way is to look at the nominal rate and subtract a reasonable estimate of one year inflation. You have 2% real rates. That's meaningfully above what many people would assess as the neutral rate."