Comments from Federal Reserve Vice-Chair Stanley Fischer August 28:

  • Previous case for September liftoff was pretty strong
  • Previous case for Sept liftoff wasn't conclusive
  • Wouldn't want to decide now on liftoff
  • Confidence 'pretty high' that inflation will get back to 2%
  • Some factors affecting inflation are temporary
  • Still need to watch the impact of yuan depreciation
  • "We don't have a whole lot of inflation going on so we don't have to move immediately"
  • US close to full employment
  • US economy "working pretty well"
  • "We're getting back to normal and at some point we'll want to show that"
  • "I think [markets] could settle fairly quickly"
  • Signals that China was the trigger for market volatility
  • Direct affect of China on US is reasonably small
  • "We're heading in that direct" (toward hikes), notes importance of next week's jobs data
  • Fed has time to wait and see incoming data
  • Would want to wait awhile after first hike before doing anything else

Hawkish comments from Fischer keep a rate hike on the table for September. The US dollar and stocks starting to feel some heat.