Is the Fed Right About Hiking Rates?

The timing and the rhetoric are strange, but the Fed is thinking about the long term

President Donald Trump (R) shakes hands with Jerome Powell, the then nominee for the Federal Reserve Chair at the White House, on Nov. 2, 2017. Since then, the President has criticized the Fed for raising rates too much. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

President Donald Trump isn’t a fan of current Federal Reserve policy, specifically about raising rates too fast or too much.

And it is true: the timing of the rate hikes and the brisk commentary coming out of the Marriner S. Eccles building in Washington seem odd to many who have gotten used to continuous Fed support for financial markets, whether in the form of jawboning or various easing programs.