Investing.com - Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester said Wednesday that the November FOMC will be an "active meeting" and repeated her views another hike in the Fed funds rate is appropriate.
"The reason I believe a gradual upward path of policy continues to be appropriate and that I favored taking another step on that path in September is because of the realized progress the economy has made on our monetary policy goals and my expectation of further progress," Mester said in a speech prepared for the Greater Cleveland Partnership.
Mester, a voter this year on the policy making Federal Open Market Committee, dissented from the decision last week to keep targeting the 0.25% to 0.50% range for the Fed funds rate.
"I view another small step on the gradual upward path as appropriate," she said Wednesday, "not because I want to curtail the expansion, but because I believe gradually moving rates up as we continue to make progress on our goals will help prolong the expansion."
The Investing.com Fed Rate Monitor Tool shows the market sees a 10.3% chance of a rate hike in November.
Earlier on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said repeated that she expects the Federal Open Market Committee to continue to gradually remove monetary policy accommodation, adding there was no fixed timeline.
"We expect to see solid job growth continue," Yellen said while answering questions at a House Financial Services Committee hearing. "But we do need, if things continue on their current course, to gradually remove the accommodation that is there."
As well, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans on the same day said in remarks in Washington that U.S. monetary policy is less accommodative than it might appear and that "there is good reason to think that even once policy normalizes, interest rates may be a good deal lower than they were in the past."