Mohamed A. El-Erian , Columnist

Four Fed Rate Hikes This Year Isn’t Set in Stone

You can count on an increase in September; December no longer looks so certain.

August 27, 2018 at 6:00 AM UTC

Mohamed A. El-Erian is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former chief executive officer of Pimco, he is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge; chief economic adviser at Allianz SE; and chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He is author of “The Only Game in Town.”

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is upbeat, unless ....
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

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Remarks by Fed officials late last week at the symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, confirmed the consensus market expectation that the U.S. central bank will hike interest rates two more times this year, delivering the biggest annual tightening in more than a decade.

The increases would be carried out even as the Fed is reducing the size of its $4 trillion balance sheets. Yet, judging from the most important signal, the headline speech by Chairman Jerome Powell, this path may be far from set in stone.