Federal Reserve ‘to keep rates low’ on poor data

With little evidence that the US economy is rebounding after a very weak first quarter, the Federal Reserve is in no position to start raising interest rates for the first time since 2006, a top Fed official said yesterday.

“I would like to normalise [rates] as soon as possible but the conditions haven’t been right,” said Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren.

He said there are side effects to keeping rates low for a long time. “In some sense, when we start raising rates that’s good news,” said Rosengren.