Reuters
Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester said on Wednesday she expects price pressures to ease further this year, allowing the Fed to reduce borrowing costs, but only when it is "pretty confident" inflation is heading sustainably to its 2% goal. "At some point, as we get more confidence, we will start to normalize policy back to a less restrictive stance, but we don't have to do that in a hurry," Mester said. Inflation so far this year has run higher than expected, she said, with the personal consumption expenditures price index running at 2.5%, and core PCE - which the Fed uses to gauge where inflation is heading - at near 3% over the last six months on an annualized basis.