The Fed’s second-in-command shrugged off heavy stock-market losses in a television interview Friday and affirmed his positive view on the economy, in comments that offered little guidance on what he would like to see with monetary policy over coming months.
“The economic outlook is favorable,” Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida said on CNBC in an interview conducted on the sidelines of the Kansas City Fed’s annual research conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
“The economy is in a good place, but there are some significant risks” tied mostly to slowing overseas growth, Clarida said.
When it comes to the future of monetary policy, Clarida said “we take our policy decisions one meeting at a time, but as we’ve indicated, we’ll do what we need to to put in place the appropriate policies, and we will act as appropriate to keep the economy in a good place.”
The official spoke in the wake of a speech earlier in the day by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, which kept the door open to rate cuts without offering firm guidance about the central bank’s monetary-policy plans.
An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com
