The Fed raised its benchmark overnight interest rate rapidly last year, from near-zero in March to the current 4.25%-4.50% range, to restrain inflation that climbed to 40-year highs. In December, Fed policymakers as a group signaled the policy rate will need to rise to at least 5.1%; financial markets, meanwhile, are pricing for the Fed to stop just short of 5%. But she did appear to ratify market expectations for the Fed's upcoming rate hike to be a quarter-of-a-percentage-point, a downshift from December's half-point rate hike and from the four 75-basis-point rate hikes that preceded. "Recent data suggests slightly better prospects that we could see continued disinflation in the context of moderate growth," Brainard said. Even as the Fed parses the progress it has made on inflation, she said it would "stay the course."

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