US Federal reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that elevated inflation will likely delay any interest rate cuts until later this year. During a panel discussion, he said, “Recent data have clearly not given us greater confidence” that inflation is coming fully under control and “instead indicate that it’s likely to take longer than expected to achieve that confidence.”
“If higher inflation does persist, we can maintain the current level of (interest rates) for as long as needed,” he added.
The remarks are disparate from his earlier comments on March 7 when he told a Senate committee that the Fed was “not far” from gaining the confidence it needed to cut rates.