Powell did not rule out the possibility of a rate hike, but the likelihood of one is currently low.

On March 19th, Jinshi News reported that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stated on Wednesday that interest rate hikes are not the expected direction of monetary policy. Powell said that officials discussed the possibility that "the next step could be an interest rate hike," but "the vast majority of participants did not consider this to be their base case scenario," though he added, "We are not ruling out any possibilities."