THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. IS TRUMP. The elephant in the room for the Federal Reserve is November's presidential election, said Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at Dreyfus and Mellon.
"The Fed is going to stay as far away from that as possible," Reinhart said, in a interview on CNBC.
Reinhart said he interprets this as meaning the first interest-rate cut occurs at the June meeting, he said.
Powell went on CBS News' "60 Minutes" program in February to make sure the American public would not confused about the intent of the Fed's policy, Reinhart said. The Fed "grabbing headlines" just before the election would confuse the public, he said.
And don't look for any discussion of the election in the minutes in three weeks or in the transcript in five years, he said, because Federal Reserve officials won't talk out loud about politics influencing the timing of action.
"Everyone will just understand that the tone and feel of policy making inclines them to move a little sooner than maybe a pure reading of the macro data would dictate," he said.