THE U.S. Federal Reserve’s patient approach to monetary policy is no guarantee that it will leave interest rates where they are for the rest of the year, the president of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, Raphael Bostic, said Friday.

“Standing pat is definitely an option, but depending on how the economy responds, moving rates up, or moving them down, are both on the table for me,” Bostic said at the close of a monetary policy conference at the San Francisco Fed.

The comments were among the first made by a Fed policymaker since the U.S. central bank made an unexpectedly dovish shift Wednesday. Forecasts released at the end of its two-day policy meeting showed 11 of the Fed’s 17 policymakers anticipate no rate increases this year, compared with just two who had that forecast in December.

Chairman Jerome Powell cited low inflation, a slowing global economy and risks like U.S. trade tension with China for the need to remain patient “for some time.” He said economic data for now was giving no definite signal for what the Fed’s next move should be.

After the Wednesday announcement, financial markets, which had already priced out any chance of a rate hike this year, began pricing in the likelihood of a rate cut next year.

And on Friday, a key part of the U.S. Treasury market inverted for the first time since 2007, with long-term rates falling below short-term ones in what is historically a harbinger of recession.

Bostic, who spent most of his speech extolling the benefits of the Fed’s new “ample reserves” approach to monetary policy, took time at the end to deliver a message to markets directly about what he said was an inaccurate reading of the Fed’s intention.

The Fed’s patience, he said, does not mean it has ruled out any rate rises for the rest of the year, and it does not constrain its options. (SD-Agencies)