Yellen Doesn't Endorse Market Expectations for Fed Rate Cuts

According to Yahoo News, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did not endorse the current market expectations for Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, while stating that markets can sometimes complement policymakers' actions. Yellen mentioned that markets anticipate future Fed moves based on their interpretation of incoming data, which can be helpful as a complement to monetary policy if markets are thoughtful when reading the data. However, she emphasized that the Fed will take whatever action they think is appropriate, and the state of markets is something that feeds into that decision. Investors are currently pricing in more than a 50% chance the Fed will lower borrowing costs in March, and expect the central bank's benchmark rate to fall to around 4% by the end of 2024. The benchmark is currently in a range between 5.25% and 5.5%.