Fed’s Bostic Calls For Patience On Rate Cuts Amid Heightened Uncertainty: ‘I Am In No Hurry’

Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic on Tuesday urged patience on interest rate cuts, saying that the U.S. economy is in a “broadly healthy” condition right now.

This, he said in an essay, affords the Federal Reserve the room it needs to wait and watch how the uncertainties shape up and impact employment and prices.

“I continue to believe the best approach for monetary policy is patience,” he said, adding that he is very cautious about jumping to rate cuts at this point.

"There is a great deal of uncertainty out there, making it quite difficult to forecast the economy with confidence,” he added.

Bostic maintained his previous stance that there could be a single rate cut this year, which he had outlined in the Fed’s outlook published in March.

"I still think there's space for that, and a lot of it will depend on how the uncertainty resolves itself," he said.

On the other hand, Bostic noted that inflation continues to remain above the Fed’s 2% target.

According to data released by the Commerce Department last week, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Index rose 0.1% in April, taking the annual inflation rate to 2.1%. Core inflation rose 0.1% during the month, with the annual rate at 2.5%.

However, Bostic said there is little evidence that President Donald Trump’s tariffs have pushed up inflation, and that the economic data so far has been good despite concerns. With that said, tariffs could even result in a one-time increase in prices, but how this unfolds remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500, was up 0.69% at the time of writing.

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