Jerome Powell stepped back from his uber dovish tone in December at the January FOMC meeting last week saying at the post-meeting press conference:
I don’t think it’s likely that the Committee will reach a level of confidence (to cut rates) by the time of the March meeting to identify March as the time to do that. But that’s to be seenFed Chairman Jerome Powell
.
If that is the latest message from the Fed chairman, as regards his unexpected early Christmas present to markets at the December FOMC meeting the issue still lingers as to what exactly then motivated Powell who has now further cemented his well-earned reputation for pivots.
After all, as the Wall Street Journal noted in its report of the December meeting, it was only two weeks prior at an appearance at Spelman College in Atlanta that Powell said it was too soon to speculate about when lower rates might be appropriate (see Wall Street Journal article: “Fed Begins…
