What the Fed’s really waiting for before cutting rates

The Federal Reserve is set to hold its June meeting this week, and markets widely expect rates to stay unchanged. Rebecca Walser, CEO, Walser Wealth Management joined TheStreet to explain the deeper reason behind the pause, and when to expect the first cut.

Related: Bank of America unveils surprising Fed interest rate forecast for 2026

Full Video Transcript Below:

REBECCA WALSER: So, I'm kind of leaning to the FOMC meeting in September being our first rate hike for our cut for 2025. And the reason for that is I think that June is just - if I look at Austan Goolsbee and he was on record on May 23, basically saying that the Fed really can't make decisions to cut rates until they see the impact of tariff policies. And because the administration keeps pausing the tariff policies, they are going that is going to delay the Fed's ability to see the impact. 

The Fed potentially thinks that it could cause stagflation, it could create depressed economic activity with higher prices or what we call stagflation. So I do not expect that we will see a rate cut in June. I think it will be too premature because the tariff policies are paused and not yet implemented, and not we don't even have trade deals negotiated yet. So I think the Fed is premature with the June cut. And I see that the members are starting to say that. And so I think that if anything, we'll start to see cuts in September if they're needed, depending on what's going on with the tariff policy.