Pow­ell throws cold water on notion of inter­est rate cuts

Fed­er­al Reserve Chair­man Jerome Pow­ell indi­cat­ed recent high infla­tion is mak­ing it less like­ly that inter­est rates will be cut in the com­ing weeks and months.
Pow­ell, speak­ing dur­ing a ques­tion-and-answer ses­sion in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., empha­sized that the hot­ter-than-desired infla­tion reports over the past quar­ter have not pro­vid­ed the Fed the con­fi­dence it needs that price pres­sures are abat­ing. Powell’s remarks are an acknowl­edge­ment of a recent major shift in expec­ta­tions from investors regard­ing inter­est rates.
“The recent data have clear­ly not giv­en us greater con­fi­dence and instead indi­cate that it is like­ly to take longer than expect­ed to achieve that con­fi­dence,” Pow­ell said.
Infla­tion, as tracked by the con­sumer price index, rose to 3.5% for the yea …