- Charles Plosser, outgoing Philadelphia Fed president
Charles Plosser, outgoing Philadelphia Fed president, said that given US unemployment rate continues to fall, near-zero interest rates are too low and there is no reason to keep them at the crisis-era levels even though inflation is running below the Fed's official target. Plosser is among the minority of Fed policy makers who insist on lifting interest rates sooner than mid-2015, which is when most of central bankers see a rate hike. He argues that there is a number of indicators, which show interest rates are too low.
Meanwhile, confidence of small businesses in the US inched higher in October as more owners plan to invest in their firms and find it difficult to fill job openings. The National Federation of Independent Business said its Small Business Optimism Index rose 0.8 point to 96.1. Still, business owners admitted their profits were falling, limiting bigger increases in the overall index. 26% of business owners said they planned investment in machinery and land, the second highest level since early 2008, and a positive sign for the business spending outlook. 24% of those surveyed reported job openings they could not fill, up three percentage points from September. Six of the index's 10 components increased in the survey of 1,502 randomly selected small business owners.
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