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El-Erian says the Fed has turned into a play-by-play commentator

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Mohamed Aly El-Erian, chief economic advisor for Allianz SE. 

Bloomberg | Getty Images

The U.S. Federal Reserve has become too data dependent and has lost sight of its overall strategy, Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, said Friday.

The economist told CNBC that a longer-term, more strategic outlook could see policymakers settle on a new inflation target of closer to 3%.

“Rather than be strategic, this Fed is overly data dependent, and has turned into a play-by-play commentator,” El-Erian told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the Ambrosetti Spring Forum in Italy.

“That’s not the role of the Fed,” he continued. “The Fed should be strategic, the Fed should provide a strategic anchor, a stabilizer.”

“The mistake that they may make is they’ll end up this time being too tight,” he said.

The U.S. Federal Reserve did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

This Fed is 'overly data-dependent,' says Allianz chief economic advisor

El-Erian’s comments follow a recent chorus of Fed policymakers who have begun speaking conservatively about rate cuts.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that the Bank would need further evidence to assess the current state of inflation, casting doubt on expectations for a June interest rate cut.

A day later, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said he wondered if the central bank should cut rates at all if inflation remained sticky, causing markets to tumble.

El-Erian said the comments were an example of the Fed “overreacting to data,” and said that it should take a more holistic view of the economy.

However, he noted that policymakers’ hawkish approach could be an indication that they are considering the possibility of a new normal inflation target.

“The way you discuss it politely is you don’t say ‘let’s change the inflation target,’ you say ‘let’s get to 2% somewhere in the future. Let’s have a trajectory’,” El-Erian said. “It may well prove that the economy is stable nearer to 3%. I don’t think that’s going to de-anchor inflation expectations,” he added.

In an effort to drag inflation back down toward its target, the Fed has hiked interest rates 11 times in total over the last few years to a target range of 5.25%-5.5% — the highest level for more than 22 years.

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Why stricter voting laws no longer help Republicans

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“The Republicans should pray for rain”—the title of a paper published by a trio of political scientists in 2007—has been an axiom of American elections for years. The logic was straightforward: each inch of election-day showers, the study found, dampened turnout by 1%. Lower turnout gave Republicans an edge because the party’s affluent electorate had the resources to vote even when it was inconvenient. Their opponents, less so.

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Why the president must not be lexicographer-in-chief

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Who decides what legal terms mean? If it is Donald Trump, God help America

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Economics

Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

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Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

Inflation barely budged in April as tariffs President Donald Trump implemented in the early part of the month had yet to show up in consumer prices, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s key inflation measure, increased just 0.1% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.1%. The monthly reading was in line with the Dow Jones consensus forecast while the annual level was 0.1 percentage point lower.

Excluding food and energy, the core reading that tends to get even greater focus from Fed policymakers showed readings of 0.1% and 2.5%, against respective estimates of 0.1% and 2.6%.

Consumer spending, though, slowed sharply for the month, posting just a 0.2% increase, in line with the consensus but slower than the 0.7% rate in March. A more cautious consumer mood also was reflected in the personal savings rate, which jumped to 4.9%, up from 0.6 percentage point in March to the highest level in nearly a year.

Personal income surged 0.8%, a slight increase from the prior month but well ahead of the forecast for 0.3%.

Markets showed little reaction to the news, with stock futures continuing to point lower and Treasury yields mixed.

People shop at a grocery store in Brooklyn on May 13, 2025 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Trump has been pushing the Fed to lower its key interest rate as inflation has continued to gravitate back to the central bank’s 2% target. However, policymakers have been hesitant to move as they await the longer-term impacts of the president’s trade policy.

On Thursday, Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell held their first face-to-face meeting since the president started his second term. However, a Fed statement indicated the future path of monetary policy was not discussed and stressed that decisions would be made free of political considerations.

Trump slapped across-the-board 10% duties on all U.S. imports, part of an effort to even out a trading landscape in which the U.S. ran a record $140.5 billion deficit in March. In addition to the general tariffs, Trump launched selective reciprocal tariffs much higher than the 10% general charge.

Since then, though, Trump has backed off the more severe tariffs in favor of a 90-day negotiating period with the affected countries. Earlier this week, an international court struck down the tariffs, saying Trump exceeded his authority and didn’t prove that national security was threatened by the trade issues.

Then in the latest installment of the drama, an appeals court allowed a White House effort for a temporary stay of the order from the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Economists worry that tariffs could spark another round of inflation, though the historical record shows that their impact is often minimal.

At their policy meeting earlier this month, Fed officials also expressed worry about potential tariff inflation, particularly at a time when concerns are rising about the labor market. Higher prices and slower economic growth can yield stagflation, a phenomenon the U.S. hasn’t seen since the early 1980s.

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