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"This was an outstanding quarter ... this big blowout number," Waller told an economic data seminar at the St. Louis Fed. So this is something we are keeping a very close eye on when we think about policy going forward." It's clearly calming down," with recent employment gains more in line with the levels seen before the coronavirus pandemic, Waller said. The Fed is in the process of weighing that and other data to determine whether to hike the benchmark policy rate again. However neither Goolsbee nor Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who spoke to Bloomberg Television on Tuesday, ruled out further Fed rate increases.

Persons: Christopher Waller, Waller, Louis Fed, Michelle Bowman, Bowman, Lisa Cook, Austan Goolsbee, Goolsbee, Neel Kashkari, Kashkari, Howard Schneider, Lindsay Dunsmuir, Michael Derby, Ann Saphir, Paul Simao, Andrea Ricci Organizations: Federal Reserve, St, Ohio Bankers League, Fed, New York Fed, Atlanta, CNBC, Chicago Fed, Minneapolis, Bloomberg Television, Thomson Locations: U.S

"It was a quirky situation," St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said in comments to a St. Louis community group. 'FELT VERY STABLE'The Fed raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, its ninth straight increase. This wasn't a straightforward decision," Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said in an interview with National Public Radio, a U.S. media outlet. But "that's a different issue than the macro policy issue that we were dealing with in terms of interest rates," Bostic said. So the conditions were right to do monetary policy the way we want to do monetary policy."

"We have not made any decision," Powell said, but will be looking closely at upcoming jobs data on Friday and inflation data next week in deciding whether rate hikes need to shift back into a higher gear. Recent inflation data was worse than expected, and revisions to prior months showed the Fed had made less progress than expected in returning inflation to its 2% target from current levels that are more than double that. At the margins, however, some of the data did move in ways consistent with the softer job market the Fed hopes will develop. In their last set of projections, in mid-December, the median estimate of the high point of the Fed's benchmark overnight interest rate was between 5.00% and 5.25%, versus the current 4.50%-4.75% range. Reporting by Howard Schneider, Ann Saphir and Lindsay Dunsmuir; Writing by Dan Burns and Paul SimaoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

"If the totality of the data were to indicate that faster tightening is warranted, we would be prepared to increase the pace of rate hikes," Powell said. Republicans focused on whether energy policy was restricting supply and keeping prices higher than needed, and whether restrained federal spending could help the Fed's cause. As of December, officials saw that rate rising to a peak of around 5.1%, a level investors expect may move at least half a percentage point higher now. With a 50-basis-point rate hike now in play, Brown said a strong monthly jobs report on Friday would likely lead to "calls for a 6% terminal rate," nearly a percentage point higher than Fed officials had projected as of December. How much remains unclear, but Powell said the focus will remain more squarely on how inflation behaves.

"If the totality of the data were to indicate that faster tightening is warranted, we would be prepared to increase the pace of rate hikes," Powell said. The Fed's benchmark overnight interest rate is currently in the 4.50%-4.75% range. Senator Sherrod Brown, the Democratic chair of the committee, said the Fed's rate hikes ignored what he viewed as a chief cause of inflation - high corporate profits. "To restore price stability, we will need to see lower inflation in this sector, and there will very likely be some softening in labor market conditions," Powell said. Powell's last monetary policy report to Congress was in June, which was early in what became the most aggressive cycle of Fed rate increases since the 1980s.

"I just think we need to keep going, and we'll discuss at the meeting how much to do." The Fed's benchmark overnight lending rate currently sits in a target range of 4.25% to 4.50%. Investors expect the Fed to lift that rate by a quarter of a percentage point at the end of its Jan. 31 -Feb. 1 meeting. Several Fed officials have expressed support for slowing to quarter-percentage-point rate increases so as not to slow the labor market more than necessary. The answer may in part be found in the latest "Beige Book" report published by the Fed on Wednesday.

The exterior of the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building is seen in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 14, 2022. Asked at a Washington Post event whether he felt U.S. investors had taken an overly optimistic view of Fed policy until a recent sharp sell-off begin, Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic said that was beside the point. "Until that happens we're going to see I think a lot of volatility in the marketplace in all directions." "At the moment, inflation remains too high," Collins said in her first policy remarks since becoming head of the bank. The Fed maintains a 2% inflation target, as measured by the personal consumptions expenditures price index.

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