Wall Street Today | Bostic Says Fed Should Hold Rates High ‘For a Long Time’

The Federal Reserve should hold interest rates at elevated levels “for a long time” to bring inflation back down to its 2% target, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said.

“I am not in a hurry to raise, but I am not in a hurry to reduce either,” Bostic said Tuesday at an event in Atlanta, referring to the US central bank’s benchmark interest rate. “I want us to hold. I think that’s the appropriate thing to do, for a long time.”

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said she would support another interest-rate increase at the Fed’s next policy meeting if the economy is performing about the same as at the time of the September gathering.

“If the economy looks the way it did at the next meeting similar to the way it looked at our recent meeting, I would do the further rate increase,” Mester told reporters on a conference call Tuesday.

US job openings unexpectedly increased in August, fueled by a surge in white-collar postings, highlighting the durability of labor demand.

The number of available positions increased to 9.61 million from a revised 8.92 million in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed Tuesday. Hiring edged up, while layoffs remained low.

Oil edged higher after a volatile session where traders weighed tightness in the physical market against macroeconomic concerns that are clouding the outlook for demand.

West Texas Intermediate settled near $89 a barrel after swinging in a roughly $2.50 range for the day, tracking equity markets. Traders are digesting messaging that the Federal Reserve will need to leave borrowing costs higher for longer, which has strengthened the dollar in the last few sessions.

Markets tumbled across nearly every sector after the Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS report. The report drove swaps traders to increase wagers on the Federal Reserve raising rates in December to better than a 50-50 odds.