Moody’s Chief Economist: Inflation Won’t Hit Number ‘Closer to’ Fed Target that Anyone’s ‘Comfortable’ with for Another Year

On Monday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime,” Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi stated that inflation getting to a level “anyone feels comfortable with” that is “closer to” the Federal Reserve’s target is “not going to happen before the end of the year, that’s something that won’t happen until this time next year.”

After stating that he thinks the bar for the Federal Reserve to start cutting rates is extremely high and would require the economy going into a recession, Zandi said, “you go back to inflation, even though I’m arguing it’s going to moderate, it’s going to take a while for that to get back into something that they feel comfortable with, that anyone feels comfortable with, closer to their target. And that’s not going to happen before the end of the year, that’s something that won’t happen until this time next year. So, I’d be very surprised if they started cutting interest rates, barring a recession. If we go — and to some degree, that is what the markets seem to be signaling, certainly the bond market and Treasury market are signaling that the investors think we’re going into an economic downturn before the end of the year.”

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