It’s been a busy week in Fed-Speak, but the message remains the same.

This week was a very important one with speeches from various Federal Reserve presidents. Many of them were on the speaking circuit, speaking at various events and conferences a week after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) met and decided to suspend its position on the federal funds rate.

Thomas Barkin of the Richmond Fed and John Williams of the New York Fed spoke on Monday, and Neel Kashkari of the Minneapolis Fed spoke on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Fed Vice Chairman Philip Jefferson, Boston Fed President Susan Collins and Fed President Lisa Cook spoke, and on Thursday, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daley spoke.

On Friday, national leaders including Federal Reserve President Michelle Bowman, Dallas Fed President Lori Logan, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, Kashkari, and Federal Reserve Vice Chair Michael Barr More than five Fed speakers will attend. So the Federal Reserve and several reserve banks were busy and half-surprised that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell didn’t show up for the Tom Brady Roast on Sunday.

We don’t know what Friday’s speakers will say yet, but we can make a pretty good guess based on all the other speeches this week. Don’t expect interest rates to go down anytime soon.

It will take more time to bring inflation down.

In fact, none of the speakers came out and said interest rates weren’t going to fall anytime soon. They all rely on data, he said, and the trajectory of interest rates is largely determined by key economic factors, including inflation and the job market.

Nearly all of the speakers repeated in various ways what Daly said Thursday at George Mason University. “We have taken limited measures, but it may take more time to bring inflation down.”

Daly added that it would take inflation to continue to fall toward the Fed’s 2% target and a cooling job market to spur interest rate cuts. However, if inflation rates rise as they have recently or remain stagnant, lowering interest rates may not be appropriate unless the job market falters. But for now, she said, the job market is healthy.

Collins expressed similar sentiments Wednesday in a speech at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Stronger-than-expected inflation and economic activity suggest that achieving the Fed’s dual mandate goals may take longer than previously thought and that progress may be uneven. Formulating monetary policy in the current circumstances requires patience and systematic assessment of available information,” Collins said.

She will look for persistent disinflation, evidence that wages continue to evolve in a way consistent with price stability, and signs that labor markets are regulating in an orderly way that better matches labor supply and demand.

Prepare for shock

On Monday, Barkin told an audience in Columbia, South Carolina, that he was optimistic that current high interest rates “could suppress demand to get inflation back on target.”

In other words, he expects all their austerity efforts to slow the economy further. In that sense, he suggests that “the full impact of interest rate increases is yet to come.” huh?

“If the economy slows further significantly, the Fed will have ample firepower to support it as needed,” he added.

Cook and Jefferson also spoke this week, but mainly discussed topics other than interest rates, while ValueWalk covered what Williams and Kashkari said on Tuesday.

Overall, it’s never clear, as the Fed is very good at maintaining the message that it all depends on the data. But this data tells us that it could be several months before we start to see any moves by the Fed to lower interest rates. The data also shows that previous estimates of three interest rate cuts in 2024 could certainly change when Fed members make their forecasts again in June.