The U.S. Fed has switched from a stance that was “too hawkish” at the end of last year to “too dovish” presently, according to Mohamed El-Erian, Allianz’s chief economic advisor.
While such a drastic swing is not expected to hit the U.S. economy in a big way, it has contributed to greater volatility in financial markets globally, he told.
“I think they went a little too far,” he said, referring to the Fed. “In the fourth quarter, they certainly were too hawkish ... and now I think they have swung too dovish.”
El-Erian said the U.S. economy “is still in a good place,” so he’s surprised that the central bank appeared to have given up on the option to tweak monetary policy for the rest of the year. In fact, he predicted that the U.S. could grow by 2.5 percent to 3 percent this year. In 2018, the U.S. economy grew by 2.9 percent.