Trump renews Fed bashing, calling for 'large' interest rate cut
Fed kowtowing to Trump's demands with potential rate cut?
National Holdings Corporation Chief Market Strategist Art Hogan on the outlook for Federal Reserve policy and the state of the markets.
President Trump on Tuesday urged the Federal Reserve to make a large interest rate cut during its two-day meeting this week, slamming the U.S. central bank for putting him at an economic disadvantage.
"The Fed moved, in my opinion, far too early and far too severely," Trump told reporters outside the White House.
His comments come at the start of the two-day Federal Open Market Committee, during which policymakers are widely expected to lower interest rates by 25 basis points to a range between 2 percent and 2.25 percent.
"I would like to see a large cut, and I would like to see immediately the quantitative tightening stop," he said.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed, and its chairman Jerome Powell, whom he nominated, for raising the benchmark federal funds rate; last year, the central bank raised rates four times, capping off the monetary policy tightening that began in 2015, much to the ire of the president. At the beginning of the month, he bashed the regulatory body as the "most difficult problem" facing the U.S.
Trump also renewed his claim that if the Fed hadn't raised interest rates in December, the stock market would be "10,000 points higher."
But he declined to answer whether he made a mistake in replacing former Fed Chair Janet Yellen almost two years ago.
"I don’t talk about that," he said, adding, "I’m very disappointed in the Fed. I think they acted too quickly, and I think I’ve been proven right."