It is "unlikely" the Federal Open Market Committee will raise rates for "at least the next couple of meetings," Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen said at a press conference Wednesday, yet she noted that could change based on incoming data.
"So I did say that the statement that the committee can be patient should be interpreted as meaning that it is unlikely to begin the normalization process for at least the next couple of meetings," she said, noting there's no "preset or predetermined time at which normalization will begin."
She added, "I want to emphasize that no meeting is completely off the table in the sense that if we do see faster progress toward our objectives than we currently expect, then it is possible that the process of normalization would occur sooner than we now anticipated, and of course the converse is also true."
