Fed Officials Signal Potential Rate Hikes to Combat Inflation

Two Federal Reserve officials have suggested that the central bank may need to raise interest rates further to control inflation, which has remained stubbornly persistent in some sectors. Fed Governor Christopher Waller said that while headline inflation has been cut in half since last year, prices excluding food and energy have barely budged over the last eight or nine months. Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin warned that prematurely loosening policy would be a costly mistake, and that he was still looking to be convinced of the plausible story that slowing demand returns inflation relatively quickly to the 2% target.