Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said he supports the central bank’s plan to raise interest rates in half-percentage-point steps at coming meetings.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said no one should doubt the U.S. central bank’s resolve to curb the highest inflation in decades, including pushing rates into restrictive territory if needed.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the current Fed leaders were too slow to react to surging U.S. inflation and as a result face a period of stagflation, or a combination of stagnant growth and high inflation.

“Unless there are some big surprises, I expect it to be appropriate to raise the policy rate another 50 basis points at each of our next two meetings,” Mester said Friday.

The Senate voted to confirm Jerome Powell for a second four-year term as Federal Reserve chair on Thursday, trusting him to tackle the highest inflation to confront the country in decades.

During his confirmation hearing, Jefferson’s experience and commitment to follow the Fed’s limited mandates had earned Republican plaudits, while Democrats have praised his research on poverty and the diversity he’ll add to the board.

Logan, 49, currently oversees implementation of the Fed’s monetary policy as manager of the Fed’s $9 trillion securities portfolio and executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where she has led Market Operations, Monitoring and Analysis since 2012.

The Michigan State University economist endured a grueling political fight over her nomination and secured a party-line vote in her favor on Tuesday night. 

Senate Democrats plan to hold votes to confirm Lisa Cook’s nomination to be a Federal Reserve governor on Tuesday, they announced Monday night.

The Federal Reserve warned of deteriorating liquidity conditions across key financial markets amid rising risks from the war in Ukraine, monetary tightening and high inflation in a semi-annual report published Monday.

Mohamed El-Erian, a closely followed bond-market strategist, says the Federal Reserve has a trust problem with financial markets and the nation over inflation.

Outflows continue with the Investment Company Institute reporting $5.371 billion pulled from muni bond mutual funds in the week ending April 27. Exchange-traded funds saw inflows at $1 billion.

The chances of an economic slowdown are rising as the Federal Reserve is poised to take further steps to tame inflation, say the heads of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.

As asset managers track winners and losers and the potential for the corporate bond default rate to spike, they consider differing factors.

Investors will be greeted Monday with a steep drop in volume, with the new-issue calendar estimated at $4.583 billion — less than half of this week's supply.

Total April volume was $34.329 billion in 729 deals versus $37.105 billion in 1,124 issues a year earlier.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown said Wednesday that the Senate would wait to confirm President Biden’s Federal Reserve picks until the return of Democrats recovering from the coronavirus.

Lael Brainard was confirmed as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors Tuesday in a 52-43 Senate vote, the first of four central bank nominees set for consideration by the chamber.

A trio of COVID-19 cases among Democrats is expected to delay Senate plans to confirm Federal Reserve nominee Lisa Cook and Federal Trade Commission nominee Alvaro Bedoya this week.

Joe Manchin, a key Democrat in the U.S. Senate, said he’s spoken to Michael Barr, President Joe Biden’s choice to be the U.S. Federal Reserve chief banking supervisor, and so far doesn’t see a problem with his nomination.