Boston Fed President Susan Collins said at the late European trading session that she expects interest rates to hold “for a longer period,” but the she expects interest rate cuts “down the road.”
Collins said she was strongly in support of holding interest rates steady and wants the Fed’s statement language changed so it does not implicitly point to a rate cut as the next move.
Collins said that policy may need to stay unchanged for a “longer period,” and she noted that more officials want to signal that the next step could be “either a rate cut or a rate hike” as inflation shows itself to be persistent.
Collins told reporters she backed the latest decision to keep rates on hold but that she “hopes to adjust the wording of the statement to avoid implying a rate cut,” according to a summary of her remarks. She added that “an increasing number of officials” want the Federal Open Market Committee to signal that the next policy move “could be either a rate cut or a rate hike,” rather than embedding a dovish bias into forward guidance.
Well-Positioned Policy
That messaging is consistent with Collins’s recent comments, according to the website crypto.news.
In late February, Collins said that the central bank is “quite likely” to keep current interest rates steady for “some time,” and said that the that the Fed’s monetary policy is well positioned for risks.
“It does seem to me that a patient and deliberate approach is appropriate at this stage, because, you know, I think that after 175 basis points of easing over the past year and a half, that we’re at a mildly restrictive, perhaps quite close to neutral [policy] already,” Collins said at the 2026 Technology-Enabled Disruption Conference.
Collins also said that the tariff news at the time hasn’t changed the outlook much and that the nation’s economy shows a “benign” outlook when it comes to inflation and wage growth. She also stated that the effects from the tariffs likely will become more pronounced as costs pass to consumers.
In March, Collins said she saw “no urgency” to change rates and would need “clear evidence” that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2% before supporting cuts.
Higher-for-Longer Camp
For months, Collins has been part of the Fed’s higher‑for‑longer camp, crypto.news reported. Previously, she repeatedly set a “high bar” for additional easing, saying she would be “reluctant to support further interest rate cuts anytime soon with inflation still high,” and warned that premature easing could “delay – or potentially halt – the return of inflation to the target level.”
According to crypto.news, Collins’ latest push to remove language that hints at cuts matters for markets that have spent much of 2026 front‑running “dovish pivots.”
