Atlanta Fed's Bostic says OK with "some overshoot" on inflation

Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President, Raphael Bostic speaks with Reuters in an interview at Stanford UniversityÕs Hoover Institution in Stanford, California, US, May 4, 2018 (Photo: Reuters)

Atlanta Federal Reserve bank president Raphael Bostic said on Monday he is comfortable with “some overshoot” of inflation and that the Fed will not draw a “big signal” on the likely path of prices if wages, as expected, begin to rise faster.

“We have seen some upward pressure (on inflation). We don’t have the ability to stop trends on a dime. Some overshoot is fine,” Bostic said at an Alanta Fed conference here. His base case is for two additional rate increases this year, and a jump in wages won’t necessarily change that.

If current trends continue, “we are going to see wages start to go up because we will truly have a scarcity of labor,” Bostic said. “I am not sure there is a big signal” in that on inflation.