(Bloomberg) -- It’s too early to know whether policy makers should cut interest rates and whether such a reduction should be a quarter or half percentage point, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
The Fed is widely expected by investors to cut interest rates in July, with some looking for a 50 basis-point move.
“It is too early, from my perspective, to know whether we should use the tool at all and what magnitude of the tool we should apply,” Daly said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Michael McKee.
U.S. central bankers left the benchmark lending rate unchanged at their June 18-19 meeting, while pivoting toward a rate cut. The central bank said in its statement that “uncertainties’’ about the outlook have increased and that it will “closely monitor’’ incoming information.
Daly is a non-voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee this year. Fed policy makers are next scheduled to meet July 30-31.
Fed chairman Jerome Powell in his press conference June 19 explained that the committee was becoming less optimistic that inflation would move back to the 2% target soon. Fed officials revised their forecast lower to just 1.5% this year, and 1.9% for 2020.
“We are well aware that inflation weakness that persists even in a healthy economy could precipitate a difficult-to-arrest downward drift in longer-run inflation expectations,” Powell said in his press conference.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, a voting member who dissented in favor of a quarter-point cut this month, also cited too low inflation as a reason why he favors a reduction of borrowing costs now.