Federal Reserve press conference, 2019-07-31 — Chair Jerome Powell

Question (Craig Torres, Bloomberg): Craig Torres from Bloomberg. I’m trying to parse what you’re saying here. On the one hand, you say the policy tilt in the statement has eased financial conditions, and that’s helping the economy. In that tilt, market participants are interpreting this language, “will act as appropriate,” as still being in the statement. And, on the other hand, you say it’s not the start of a—of an easing cycle. So what are you saying? Does that mean, you know, with one or two more cuts you’ll be done, and this policy bias comes out of the statement? Or simply that this policy bias will come out of the statement sooner than market participants think?
Answer: So it is—as I mentioned, it’s going to depend on the evolving data and the evolving risk picture. But as we look at the situation now and the outlook now, what we see is that it’s appropriate to make an adjustment in policy to a somewhat more accommodative stance. That’s what we’re seeing. And that’s what we’re going to be looking—you know, we’ll be looking at incoming data, at all of the—at the risks that I mentioned, and the performance of the U.S. economy, and at low inflation. We’ll be looking at that to make our decisions going forward.

Question (John Heltman, American Banker): I mean, I just—I’d like to clarify, like, are you pleased with the responsiveness you’re getting from them? Do you feel like this is going the way that you kind of wanted it to go?
Answer: I’m not going to characterize it. You know—I mean, I have characterized it. We have—we have an enforcement action in place. The company is working away at addressing it. They take it seriously. I think they do see it as we do, as something that has to go deep. And, you know, we’ll lift the growth cap when we’re satisfied.