Fed may be 'on the sidelines' with rate cuts if inflation persists: Economist

Economic data released Thursday morning — including February's Producer Price Index (PPI) and US retail sales — came out hotter than expected, showing that stickiness in inflation persists. Stifel Chief Economist Lindsey Piegza joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss what these readings mean for the future of the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts.
Piegza states that these prints will make it "hard for the Fed to justify a near-term rate reduction." She believes the Federal Reserve will wait until the second half of the year "to initiate a change in [monetary] policy." With investors anticipating a rate cut in June, Piegza considers this prediction "overly optimistic" given the elevated inflation data that has been released.
Piegza suggests that the Fed "stopped short" of where rate hikes should have initially occurred, saying "they are allowing inflation to become fully entrenched the longer they sit on the sidelines."
#fed #inflation #youtube
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