Powell's Senate testimony: well aware of the risks of cutting rates too late Fed will cautiously withdraw tightening.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's second day of semi-annual congressional testimony began. Same as Wednesday's testimony to the House Financial Services Committee, Thursday to the Senate Banking Committee, Powell also first read the same testimony prepared in advance.

The testimony reiterated Powell's remarks from the monetary policy post-meeting conference at the end of January that it may be appropriate to begin cutting rates sometime this year if the economic situation changes in line with expectations, but the economic outlook is uncertain, and there is no guarantee that inflation will continue to fall to the Fed's target of 2%. Before deciding to cut interest rates, Fed officials need to fall back to 2% inflation "more confident". In the question and answer session of the Senate hearing, a legislator asked why the Fed can not cut interest rates now.