By Michael S. Derby
(Reuters) -Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Susan Collins said Friday that financial markets, which have been under massive pressure, appear to be holding in, in comments made in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
“Markets continue to function well,” Collins said in the interview, adding “financial market movements are something to stay focused on” amid a huge range of uncertainty tied to trade policy.
Collins’ comments to Yahoo come after a speech the official made late Thursday that flagged the uncertain outlook caused by the Trump administration’s tariffs, amid expectations the big rise in import taxes imposed by the president will drive up inflation and depress growth for a time.
Collins told Yahoo the economy entered the year robustly. Now, uncertainty “clouds the outlook” and in conversations with contacts in her district, Collins said “what I hear is really a pervasive wait-and-see approach as firms consider how to react to an environment that is highly uncertain and with the tariffs quite elevated.”
Collins downplayed recession risks but did not rule them out. “There are more adverse scenarios that I wouldn’t rule out, but my own kind of modal scenario is one of slower growth, not a significant downturn,” the official said.
(Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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