Early comment in the House from Powell, he notes that there is still data to come before the March 22 and that he hasn't seen today's JOLTS data.
- March decision is data dependent, we will be guided by incoming data
- Notes jobs and CPI data
- When I said we're going to be looking at the data, it meant upcoming data
- We have not made any decision about the March meeting
You have to assume this is a deliberate Federal Reserve pushback on the market pricing a 70% chance of 50 bps today (though it's coming down on this comment).
The question was: How do you think about the March meeting? So it was open-ended and I even wonder if he asked to be asked that question because he was immediately ready and read from notes.
