MNI BRIEF:Powell Says Market Appropriately Pricing Tighter Fed

Financial markets are pricing in ongoing aggressive rate increases from the Federal Reserve in coming months, and that means they are getting the right message from Fed policymakers, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday.

“Financial conditions have tightened and have priced in a string of additional rate increases, and that’s appropriate. The market has been reading our reaction function reasonably well,” he told U.S. senators. “What you’ll see is continued expeditious progress toward higher rates. The center of the committee wrote down that rates would be between 3% and 3.5% by the end of this year.”

Powell added: "We know we need to have restrictive policy and that is where we are headed." (See MNI INTERVIEW: Inflation Worries Threaten U.S. Expansion-UMich)