Fed’s Waller suggests ‘early and fast’ tapering of bond purchases

Fed’s Waller suggests ‘early and fast’ tapering of bond purchases

The Federal Reserve should consider starting to slow down its $120 billion-a-month asset purchases as soon as its next meeting in September, and at a fast enough pace to get it done quickly, said Fed Gov. Christopher Waller on Monday.

Waller, who joined the Fed last year, said he was “very” optimistic about the outlook. He said he thinks the next two jobs reports — for July and August — will be strong. The July jobs report will be released on Friday.

If his forecast comes true, the Fed could announce its intention to slow down the purchases at its September meeting and start the process in October, Waller said.

“If the jobs reports come in as I think they’re going to…then in my view, with tapering, we should go early and go fast,” Waller said.

By “fast,” Waller said he meant at a quicker pace than the taper in 2013-’14, when the Fed starting slowing down asset-buying in December 2013 and didn’t finish until 10 months later, in October 2014.

Waller said there was no reason to go slow on tapering once it starts, given the strength of the economy and the high rate of inflation.

“You want to get it done and get it over with,” he said.

That would give the Fed room to raise interest rates in 2022, if necessary. “I am not saying we would,” he said.

He said he was worried that inflation was more than “transitory,” as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has said.

Last week, Fed Gov. Lael Brainard suggested she wanted to delay any start of tapering until after the Fed reviewed economic data in October.

Waller’s comments dovetail closely with comments that his former boss, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, made last week. Waller was the top economist at the St. Louis regional Fed bank before joining the central bank’s board in Washington.

Stocks turned lower after Waller’s comments. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.28% finished down almost 100 points after trading in positive territory most of the day, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.18% lost 8 points.

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