$BTC The speech has ended, let's summarize!
Powell's meeting this time focused mainly on tariffs and economic downward pressure, raising many questions. In response, Powell's views remained within his usual framework, but there was a significant change: he pointed out that inflation has shown a downward trend. If there are fluctuations in the next two months, it is very likely that tariffs are to blame.
Powell believes that the impact of tariffs on inflation is limited and temporary. As long as tariff policies remain stable, they are unlikely to interfere with the expectation of inflation falling back to the 2% target. Although inflation and tariff issues may lead to a slowdown in U.S. economic growth, the Federal Reserve has not yet detected signs of economic recession.
Regarding the subsequent discussions on interest rate cuts and balance sheet reduction, Powell took a firm stance, clearly stating that the likelihood of a rate cut in May is low, and he also predicted that tariffs might cause inflation to rise further in May. Although there have been discussions within the Federal Reserve about completely stopping or pausing balance sheet reduction, they ultimately decided not to pause but to reduce the scale of balance sheet reduction.
Overall, Powell firmly believes that the U.S. economy will not enter recession at present, even considering the decline in GDP and slowing economic growth. Given the stability of the labor market, as well as good consumer spending and wage levels, there is no intention to increase the frequency of interest rate cuts prematurely out of concern for recession. $BTC