Cleveland Fed President Mester's interest rate expectations

“If the economy looks the same at the next meeting as it did at our last meeting, I will raise rates again,” Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said Tuesday. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said she would support another rate hike at the Fed’s next policy meeting if the economy continues to perform as it did before the September FOMC meeting, although she acknowledged that a rise in long-term bond yields was possible. “If the economy looks the same at the next meeting as it did at our last meeting, I will raise rates again,” she told reporters on a conference call. But Mester, who does not have a vote on the central bank’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee this year, cautioned that what comes next for the Fed is still a moving target. “I can’t tell you right now what’s going to happen at the November meeting, what’s going to happen at the December meeting, but we’ll still have to wait and see how the economy plays out,” she said of the policy outlook through the end of the year. The FOMC is scheduled to meet Oct. 31-Nov.