Fed's Mary Daly says monetary policy is 'in a good place' but won't predict what comes next

The Federal Reserve isn’t going to tell you what it plans to do next. And according to one of its most prominent regional leaders, that’s by design.

Mary C. Daly, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, told attendees at the Bloomberg Tech Conference on June 4 that monetary policy is “in a good place” right now. But she explicitly declined to offer any view on where interest rates are headed, arguing that economic uncertainty makes forward guidance more likely to mislead than to inform.

What Daly actually said, and what she didn’t

Daly’s comments were notable as much for what was absent as for what was present. There were no numerical interest rate forecasts. No updates to the Fed’s dot plot, the chart that maps out individual policymakers’ rate expectations. No hints about timing for the next move, up or down.

Instead, she emphasized the Fed’s readiness to respond to whatever the economy throws at it.