WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer is leaving the door open for a rate increase in September. He says the factors that have been keeping inflation below the Fed’s target rate have likely begun to fade.
Fischer says there’s “good reason to believe that inflation will move higher as the forces holding down inflation dissipate further.” He says, for example, that some effects of a stronger dollar and a plunge in oil prices have already started to diminish.
His remarks came in a highly anticipated speech at an annual conference of Fed officials in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Investors are trying to determine whether the Fed might still be on course to raise rates after its Sept. 16-17 meeting given recent market turbulence, which had raised doubts.
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