Despite pressures from lawmakers Wednesday, Jerome Powell didn't give any additional insight into how the Federal Reserve is thinking about rate cuts.

Powell echoed the comment his central bank colleagues have made publicly since 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:their January meeting. The Federal Reserve is likely to cut its benchmark interest rate later this year as inflation continues to recede, but that’s not a guarantee, Powell said in 🔯testimony to the House Financial Services Committee.

Powell's appearance before Congress this week comes at a time when monetary policy is at an inflection point. Inflation has fallen enough to where the Fed is considering when to cut its influential fed funds rate, but not enough to give officials confidence that price increases won't reaccelerate.

“The economic outlook is uncertain, and ongoing progress toward our 2% objective for inflation is not assured," Powell said in his prepared comments. "Reducing policy restraint too soon or too much could result in a reversal of progress we have seen in inflation and ultimately require even tighter policy to get inflation back to 2%.”

Markets Remain Hopeful For a Rate Cut

Despite Powell's note of caution, equities rallied midday Wednesday after a slump the day before. The S&P 500 was up 0.8% as he wrapped up his testimony.

Investors priced in a nearly 90% chance of at least one rate cut by July, according to the CME Group's FedWatch Tool, which forecasts based on fed funds futures trading data. The likelihood of cuts in May and June was still small, but increased after Powell's testimony.

"While maintaining that inflation has fallen dramatically, [Powell] continues to indicate that the fight against inflation is not done and that the risks of cutting too early are great," said Alex McGrath, chief investment officer for NorthEnd Private Wealth in South Carolina. "The market has seemingly once again ignored this data point as yields are down and stocks are rebounding this morning from the rout that occurred yesterday."

Representatives W🐎ant to Know What Else the Fed Needs to Cut Rates

In the Q&A, Representative Patrick McHenry, Republican of North Cꦜarolina, tried to get more concrete about what data the Fed is looking👍 for, asking at what point the committee would be forced to cut rates. In response, Powell said not much new.

"The committee would like to see more data that confirm and make us more confident that inflation is moving sustainably down to 2%," Powell said.

"Overall Powell was pretty careful to avoid sending new signals on the direction of monetary policy, which makes sense given that there’s another full set of inflation and employment data ahead of the next FOMC meeting," wrote analysts at J.P. Morgan.

Thursday, Powell will head to the Senate, where he wi🐽ll speak on the same topics.