Chair Jerome Powell said the Federal Reserve is not close to ending its anti-inflation campaign of interest-rate increases as officials signaled borrowing costs will head higher than investors expect next year.
“We still have some ways to go,” he told a press conference on Wednesday in Washington after the Federal Open Market Committee raised its benchmark rate by 50 basis points to a 4.25% to 4.5% target range. Policymakers projected rates would end next year at 5.1%, according to their median forecast, before being cut to 4.1% in 2024 — a higher level than previously indicated.
Powell said that the size of the rate increase delivered on Feb. 1 at the Fed’s next meeting would depend on incoming data — leaving the door open to another half-percentage point move or a step down to a quarter point — and he pushed back against bets that the Fed would reverse course next year.
