WASHINGTON — (CNN) The Federal Reserve didn’t hike interest rates last week.
Critics — even some within the Fed — publicly lambasted the decision..
But Fed Chair Janet Yellen has a message for them: We made the right call.
Yellen argued Thursday that persistently low inflation warrants keeping interest rates near-zero for now. But she reiterated that a rate hike by the end of the year is likely.
“Given that inflation has been running below the FOMC’s objective for several years now, such concerns reinforce the appropriateness of the Federal Reserve’s current monetary policy,” Yellen said in a speech Thursday evening at the University of Massachusetts.
Yellen believes that U.S. inflation will move toward the Fed’s 2% target. Despite low inflation for years now, Yellen says temporary factors like low oil prices are holding down inflation from coming up to a more normal level.
“Falling consumer energy prices explain about half of this year’s shortfall and a sizable portion of the 2013 and 2014 shortfalls as well,” Yellen said Thursday.
Yellen’s speech focused almost entirely on the U.S. economy, a key difference from her press conference last week where she talked for a considerable time about her concerns regarding the global economy (read: China) and stock market volatility (she briefly touched on those points Thursday).
However, Yellen reiterated that she thinks the Fed will likely raise interest rates sometime “later this year.” The Fed only has two meetings left — one in October and the other in December.
The stock market has sold off sharply since the Fed didn’t raise rates. The Nadsaq has erased all gains for the year and the Dow is back below its 10% correction level. Investors have been “dazed and confused” by the Fed’s plans — and whether the global economy is going to be a drag on America.
Keeping in her even-handed style, Yellen said that if the economic outlook worsens later this year, the Fed could push back a rate hike until 2016.
“If the economy surprises us, our judgments about appropriate monetary policy will change,” Yellen said, ending her speech.
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