Federal Reserve's Goolsby: Remain cautious about interest rate cuts due to a lack of reliable inflation data.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York's John Goolsby said on Thursday that the lack of official inflation data during the government shutdown "further underscored" his cautious stance on further interest rate cuts. "My inclination is that when things are still very unclear, we should be more careful and slow down," Goolsby said in an interview. Goolsby pointed out that the Fed still has access to various private data on the labor market, including the Chicago Fed's newly released bi-weekly unemployment rate estimate. Latest data shows that the unemployment rate may have risen to 4.4% in October, the highest level in four years. He said that this estimate, along with most other labor market indicators, shows that "the labor market remains fairly stable." "If the labor market starts to deteriorate, we can see signs almost immediately." However, he also mentioned that alternative sources of inflation data are very limited. Before the government suspended the release of economic data, statistics showed that inflation was showing signs of recovery. He said, "If there are problems with inflation, there won't actually be any observable data to reflect that, which makes me even more cautious about cutting rates prematurely." (Jinshi)