Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester dismissed concerns over tumbling stock markets and said the U.S. economy's expansion was "on solid ground."
"Underlying fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain very sound," Mester said Monday in an interview on Bloomberg television. "There's going to be volatility in the markets, that's kind of the nature of financial markets."
Mester, who votes this year on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee, said she expects the U.S. economy to grow by 2.5 percent to 2.75 percent this year.
Her remarks came after the Dow Jones Industrial Average got off to its worst start to a year since 1932. Investors were reacting to negative manufacturing data from Asia and a sell-off in Chinese stocks.
Mester was the second Fed official to play down the market turmoil on Monday. In an interview with CNBC earlier, San Francisco Fed President John Williams said the equities sell-off would have no impact on his medium-term forecast for growth in the U.S.
