CNBC
- It's time for the Federal Reserve to end its war against inflation, according to Rick Rieder.
- "My sense is they should be done," the BlackRock bond chief told CNBC Thursday.
- The central bank has signaled it could raise interest rates again before the end of 2023.
It's time for the Federal Reserve to call an end to its war against soaring, according to Rick Rieder.
BlackRock's CIO for global fixed income said Thursday that the central bank shouldn't raise interest rates again – but acknowledged it may tighten further in a bid to kill off inflation for good.
"I think so," Rieder told CNBC's "Closing Bell", in response to a question about whether interest rates are close to peaking.
"You have to buy into the fact that this Fed wants to bolt down, that inflation is going to be durably softer over time, so could they hike another time or more? They could."
"My sense is they should be done… I think they should've been done before," he added.
The Fed raised rates by 525 basis points between March 2022 and July 2023 – and that's helped the rate of inflation fall cool from four-decade highs to 3.7%, as of August.
Chair Jerome Powell signaled last week that the central bank plans to "proceed carefully", but left the door open for further hikes before the end of 2023.
Rieder has previously criticized the Fed for focusing on getting inflation all the way down to its target level of 2%, which he said could wreck the US labor market.
"This whole idea of there's a magic to 2% doesn't make any sense to me," he told Bloomberg's "Odd Lots" podcast in July.
"It's not worth it," the asset manager's CIO for fixed income added. "Why would you take millions of people out of work because you need to go from 2.7% to 2%?"