Fed Stuck on Six-Week Data Cycle When Investors Want a Forecast

  • Powell has insisted rate decisions be made meeting by meeting
  • Critics say extreme data dependence is creating volatility
Jerome Powell, chairman of the US Federal Reserve.Photographer: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg
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For the past several months, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has hammered home the idea that interest-rate decisions will be made meeting by meeting based on incoming data.

The Fed publishes a summary of every policymaker’s quarterly economic forecasts, but Powell has referred to those as just a snapshot of views from that moment in time.