Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic delivered a speech titled “The Path to Economic Resilience” to the Rotary Club os Savannah yesterday. There he expressed his support further further rate hike as the economy “appears to be in a pretty good place”.
His growth outlook “hasn’t changed materially” since the start of the year and output is expected to growth at a “moderately above-trend pace this year and next”, then slow to slightly less than 2%.
Regarding inflation, Bostic said he hasn’t seen a “dramatic shift” in inflation expectation or measured retail price inflation yet. And aggregate wage growth “appears to have flattened out” over the past year to a level that’s inline with fundamentals.
Bostic is comfortable to “move policy toward a more neutral stance”, where it’s “neither accommodative nor restrictive”. While neutral rate is “something we know with precision”, he believed Fed is getting close to the “lower part of most plausible estimates of the neutral rate”. And he noted the key question is the number of hikes are required to reach neutral.
He also warned of trade policy of the US. Bostic said “I began the year with a decided upside tilt to my risk profile for growth, reflecting business optimism following the passage of tax reform. However, that optimism has almost completely faded among my contacts, replaced by concerns about trade policy and tariffs. Perceived uncertainty has risen markedly. Projects already under way are continuing, but I get the sense that the bar for new investment is currently quite high. ‘Risk off’ behavior appears to be the dominant sentiment among my contacts. In response, I’ve shifted the risks to my growth outlook to balanced.”
