Employers added just 142,000 jobs in September, and officials lowered their estimate of job gains in July and August by a combined 59,000.
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Many economists had thought the Fed would raise interest rates in September. Since that meeting, the USA economy hasn’t performed well while inflation has remained low and the global economy is still weak.
“I continue to feel that cumulative progress is consistent with liftoff relatively soon”, Lockhart concluded.
Hopes the U.S. central bank will keep borrowing costs at record lows for a little longer has given a boost to markets that had been pressured by fears about narrower investment opportunities.
A fourth regional bank president with a vote, John Williams, head of the San Francisco Fed, said in a speech Thursday that he also expects a rate hike this year.
This month has seen a broadly strong advance across global markets after they suffered one of their worst quarters in years, battered by the USA rate fears as well as concerns over China’s struggling economy.
LIMA, Peru-Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer on Sunday said the USA central bank is taking a cautious approach in its deliberations about raising interest rates, considering developments overseas as well as the effect of higher interest rates on emerging markets and elsewhere.
Evans is among the Fed’s “doves” – officials who worry more about threats from economic weakness than do “hawks”, who focus more on the risk that inflation could run too high.
The next meeting of the committee will be October 27-28 and the final meeting of the year will occur on December 15-16. The Fed has a policy meeting later this month and one in December.
Even though uncertainty about the Fed’s intentions might itself roil global markets, “We remain committed to communicating our intentions as clearly as possible – but not more than the facts warrant”, he said.
Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said the USA economy is “on a satisfactory track” of expanding 2 percent to 3 percent per year. “Based on federal funds futures, the probability of a first increase in the target range for the federal funds rate at the September meeting fell slightly”.
Coupled with a poor USA labour reading last Friday, most investors do not expect the Fed to raise rates until March next year at the earliest, according to CME Group FedWatch.
Among other precious metals, silver was set for a near-4 percent weekly jump, after hitting a 3-1/2-month high on Wednesday on a softer dollar and expectations of a delay in a USA rate hike.
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Mr. Lockhart said the idea the Fed might face economic conditions so worrisome that it would have to turn to fresh stimulus efforts are unlikely. “The ambiguity of the moment reinforces the need to closely watch the vital signs of the economy over the coming weeks to determine if the outlook has changed”.
