(Reuters) – Risks are rising that the coronavirus could be more severe than previously thought, but interest rates are now appropriate after the Federal Reserve’s emergency rate cut, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said Wednesday.
“We got the policy rate to the right place for now, given the information we have now,” Bullard said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “And we took out some insurance against the possibility that this will cause a growth slowdown in the U.S.”
Fed officials cut interest rates by half a percentage point Tuesday, bringing the target to a range of 1.00% to 1.25%.
Bullard said he was going to support a rate cut at the March meeting and did not see a reason to wait.
(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
