Lael Brainard, the member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and a permanent member of the rate hike committee indicated that while she supports the beginning of the trimming of the Federal Reserve’s $4.5 trillion balance sheet, she remains cautious when it comes to a rate hike. She is ideologically very close to Fed Chair Janet Yellen and was a prominent dovish member of the FOMC board, however, this year, along with other Fed Reserve members, she has transformed into a hawk. With regard to balance sheet, she said, “"In light of recent policy moves, I consider normalization of the federal funds rate to be well under way…….If the data continue to confirm a strong labor market and firming economic activity, I believe it would be appropriate soon to commence the gradual and predictable process of allowing the balance sheet to run off."

However, she added a dovish tone by adding that the U.S. Federal Reserve may not have much more to do in terms of rate hikes. Currently, the financial market is pricing a 57 percent chance of a hike in December, "In my view, the neutral level of the federal funds rate is likely to remain close to zero in real terms over the medium term…….If that is the case, we would not have much more additional work to do on moving to a neutral stance….I will want to monitor inflation developments carefully, and to move cautiously on further increases in the federal funds rate, so as to help guide inflation back up around our symmetric target".

She added that that Fed will monitor closely the levels of inflation as the global economy is having synchronous growth and other central banks policy influence on US rates.