Feds Bullard ‘Wouldn’t Rule Out’ Tapering in September

St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard spoke with FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Peter Barnes about quantitative easing and tapering the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying program. Bullard discussed tapering, saying, “I think I’m on the record as being vague on that.” When asked whether he would rule out tapering in September, he said, “I wouldn’t rule it out,” but added, “If it was just me, and I was dictator, I’d probably be for quite a bit of caution here.”

On where he stands on tapering:

“I think I’m on the record as being vague on that. We’ve all said that it’s data-dependent, we want to see more data. I might be emphasizing caution here. Inflation is running pretty low right now. I said earlier today I don’t think we need to be in any hurry to do the tapering so I think we can afford to wait, get more data, see if the economy’s strengthening the way we’re predicting it will in the second half of the year.”

On whether he would rule out tapering starting in September if the numbers are heading in the right way:

“I wouldn’t rule it out…If it was just me, and I was dictator, I’d probably be for quite a bit of caution here to really go through that and wait and see, whether there could be something put on the table that I could go with, we will see at the meeting.”

On what job numbers he needs to see for August to support tapering in September:

“I wouldn’t want to put too much weight on one month’s numbers. Of course the jobs report is always a big piece of data and often in the jobs report there will be revisions to previous months so maybe that goes down, maybe that goes up, I don’t know. I’d like to see where that comes in and we’ll make an assessment from there. I think unemployment is important too. Unemployment ticked down last time, we’ll see if that continues this time. So there are a lot of things to be looking at here….I don’t want to pin it down to one number…It’s a bigger decision than just whether the job report comes in with a certain number.”

Courtesy of FOX Business Network

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