If you were looking to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for clues about whether the Fed will raise rates again at future meetings, his most recent speech probably left you in the dark.

The central bank is determined to get inflation down to its goal of a 2% annual rate and keep it there, Powell said in a highly-anticipated speech at an economics symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Friday. While acknowledging that recent reports on consumer price increases have shown inflation slowing, Powell said it was still too high and the Fed would raise rates more if needed.

“As is often the case, we are navigating by the stars under cloudy skies,” Powell said. “At upcoming meetings, we will assess our progress based on the totality of the data and the evolving outlook and risks. Based on this assessment, we will proceed carefully as we decide whether to tighten further or, instead, to hold the policy rate constant and await further data.”

Powell’s speech emphasized the difficulty of the Fed’s fight against inflation, and the ways it could go wrong. Since 2022, the central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times, to its highest since 2001, in an effort to subdue the rapid cost-of-living increases that set in as the economy reopened from the pandemic in late 2021.

By raising the fed funds rate, which influences 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:💛borrowing costs for all kinds of credit, the Fed has made mortgages, business loans, credit cards, and other forms of credit costlier. That’s discouraged borrowing and spending, and put a drag on economic activity, especially in the housing market, which has slowed to a crawl under the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:weight of sky-high mortgage rates.

The rate hikes have also caused banks to 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结🐻果体彩网:get choosier about who they lend m♏oney to, making it even harder for businesses to hire and expand, and for indivi🌳duals to make major purchases. 

The Fed’s goal is to reduce spending and allow supply and demand to rebalance, pushing inflation down. Inflation has receded since the Fed’s rate hike campaign began, with consumer price increases 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:falling to a 3.2% annual increase as of July, down from 9.1% in June 2022.

A major risk of the rate hikes is that the economy could slow down so much that 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:there’s a recession and mass layoffs—a danger that Powell acknowledged in his speech.

“Doing too little could allow above-target inflation to become entrenched and ultimately require monetary policy to wring more persistent inflation from the economy at a high cost to employment,” Powell said. “Doing too much could also do unnecessary harm to the economy.”

After digesting Powell’s speech and other 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:ambivalent remarks by𓄧 Fed officials, the prospect of further rate hikes this year are basically a tossup in November and December, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which forecasts rate hikes based on fed futures trading data. 

Notably absent from the speech was any discussion of when the Fed might begin to shift out of i🌸nflation-fighting mode and start lowering its interest rate. 

“The overall tone of Chair Powell’s Jackson Hole speech is one of cautious optimism coupled with clear determination to take no chances with the inflation outlook; if that requires further tightening, in the Fed’s view, then so be it,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconom🐎ics, said in a commentary. “But nothing is guaranteed.”