Powell says Federal Reserve is more confident inflation is slowing to its target

Chair Jerome Powell said the Federal Reserve is becoming more convinced that inflation is headed back to its 2% target and said the Fed would cut rates before the pace of price increases actually reached that point. “We’ve had three better readings, and if you average them, that’s a pretty good pace,” Powell said of inflation in a question-and-answer question at the Economic Club of Washington. Those figures, he said, “do add to confidence” that inflation is slowing sustainably. Powell declined to provide any hints of when the first rate cut would occur. But most economists foresee the first cut occurring in September.