Patrick Harker joins FOMC hawk band

Patrick Harker, President of Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, said on Monday that he could easily see FED raising interest rates two to three times this year, joining the band of policymakers at U.S. Federal Reserve warning on market pessimism over rate hikes.

“Although I cannot give you a definitive path for how policy will evolve, I can easily see the possibility of two or three rate hikes over the remainder of the year,”

He, however, like every one of his colleagues stressed that FED hike should be data dependent, since many times rate hikes have been associated with weaker economic outcomes and FED doesn’t want that.

Referring to rate hikes he said,  

“These types of actions that have typically been necessary to reign in accelerating inflation have also been associated with negative economic outcomes, therefore, we need to minimize the possibility that we could once again find ourselves in that predicament.”

The list now includes, Boston FED chief Rosengren, Atlanta FED chief Lockhart, Kansas City FED chief George, San Francisco FED chief Williams and now Philadelphia’s Harker, who have either warned of hikes in next few meetings or two-three rate hikes this year.

Market is eagerly awaiting the speeches of FED Chair Janet Yellen scheduled for this Friday and on June 6th to pin down their expectations.