The Federal Reserve faces a difficult decision at next month’s policy meeting on whether to offer further stimulus to a U.S. economy that is still growing but only slowly, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on Friday.
Policymakers could wait until December if they felt the need for greater clarity on the outlook, Bullard told CNBC television, though he acknowledged that financial markets were already assigning a very high probability of Fed action at the November meeting.
“This upcoming FOMC meeting is going to be a tough call, because the economy has slowed but it hasn’t slowed so much that it’s an obvious case to do something,” Bullard said.
“I do think the risk of a double-dip recession has probably receded some in the last six to eight weeks.”
