St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said he’d favor successive rate hikes at the upcoming March, May and June meetings, rather than a 50bps hike in March. “The point of this is to get better positioned right now and in coming months, and then we will be able to assess, at that point, whether we need to do more or not,” he said.

“We are going to be have to be more nimble, faster, better at reacting to inflation data and other developments as we go through this year,” Bullard said. “It’s going to be a more data-dependent environment.”

Bullard added he’d like to start the balance sheet runnoff in Q2, and “that the runoff can be faster than it was last time around.” “We are cognizant of the inflation issue, we’re moving on the policy rate, but we’re also going to move on the balance sheet so we’re not that far from reaching neutral if you are willing to consider both of those,” he said

Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said he would be “supportive of a 25 basis point increase in March.” But he’s “a little less convinced of” a 50 bps hike right now. He added, “if inflation stays where it is now, and continues to start to come down, I don’t see a 50 basis point increase.”

“Right now, I think four 25 basis point increases this year is appropriate,” Harker said. “But there’s a lot of risk here,” including the risk that inflation is worse than expected, or that it eases faster than Fed officials expect.

Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said yesterday, “as I talk to participants in the economy, what I hear is they actually want us to do something now about inflation. They’d like us to get back to at least a normal interest-rate posture and not be simulating more demand on top of normal levels. So, I don’t hear much resistance to that.”

“I’d like us to be better positioned,” Barkin said. “Better positioned is somewhere closer to neutral, certainly, than we are now and I think the pace of that just depends on the pace of inflation.”

Atlanta Fed Bank President Raphael Bostic said, 50bps hike in March was “not my preferred policy action.” He added, “I had three rate increases in mind. March is looking like the right time” to get that started. From there, however, “we are not on any set progression.”

“We are going to need to be thinking very carefully about how things are going, how the economy responds to our first moves,” Bostic said. “We are not set on any particular trajectory. The data will tell us what is happening.”

San Francisco Fed Bank President Mary Daly said “we definitely are poised for a March increase.” But she added, “after that, I want to see what the data brings us … let’s get through Omicron, let’s look at this and let’s see.”

“If the economy progresses like I see it progressing, then it is clear that it can stand on its own two feet, that we do not need to be providing the same level of extraordinary … accommodation that we provided during the pandemic and have provided for the last two years,” Daly said.

Kansas City Fed President Esther George said Fed’s policy normalization approach could be more aggressive on balance sheet reduction, rather than faster rate hikes.

“What we do on the balance sheet is likely to affect the path of policy rates and vice versa,” George said during an event “For example, if we took more aggressive action on lowering, pulling down that balance sheet, it might allow for fewer interest rate increases.”

He added that raising short-term interest rate while maintaining a large balance sheet “could flatten the yield curve”, and lead to “reach-for-yield behavior from long-duration investors.”

“All in all, it could be appropriate to move earlier on the balance sheet relative to the last tightening cycle,” she said.