FED Chairman Jerome Powell will present the “Semi-Annual Monetary Policy Report” to the House Financial Services Committee yesterday and today.
Powell, who made his first presentation yesterday, made important statements on many topics from interest rate cuts to cryptocurrencies.
Accordingly, the FED Chairman stated that inflation would increase in the coming months due to tariffs, but added that he supports interest rate cuts later this year.
At this point, Powell stated that tariffs will have an impact on inflation in the summer months, and that this impact could be short-lived or long-lived.
“The FOMC’s obligation is to keep long-term inflation expectations firmly anchored at 2% and to prevent a one-time increase in the price level from becoming a continuing inflation problem,” Powell said.
Powell said the economy has plenty of room to cut interest rates if needed.
Powell said current interest rates are high enough to warrant rate cuts, but he said they are prepared to take action if the impact of income and tariffs is short-lived as data suggests.
“We think we will start to see the impact of tariffs on inflation in the summer months, in the June and July data.
We may see that inflation is not as strong as we expected and that tariffs do not affect inflation much. If this happens, we can start reducing interest rates earlier.
On the other hand, if we see inflation coming in higher or the labor market remains strong, then we will probably act later.
However, the majority of Fed members think that interest rate cuts should be made towards the end of the year.”
FED Has No Authority Over Cryptocurrency!
FED Chairman Jerome Powell also spoke about Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies. At this point, Powell stated that the FED cannot and will not request authorization to purchase crypto.
Powell added that the Fed cannot legally purchase cryptocurrencies and is not considering seeking such authority.
However, he stated that banks can offer cryptocurrency services as long as security is ensured and are free to operate in this field.
In addition to his crypto statements, Powell stated that the dollar will continue to be the reserve currency for a long time.
*This is not investment advice.
