Bank of America Corporation (BAC)

Financial instability could trump inflation: strategist

The Federal Reserve is still battling stubbornly high inflation, along with new concerns over the state of the country's financial system. The concerns have sparked global jitters and can ultimately "trump the inflation objective in the very near term," Krishna Guha, Evercore ISI Vice Chair, tells Yahoo Finance. The Fed is trying to "walk and chew gum at the same time," he says. Much of Wall Street remains split on the Fed's next move. The bar for pausing and the bar for cutting are "very, very different," Guha says. "The bar for pausing is not that high," while the bar for cutting is "much higher" on both a qualitative and quantitative sense, Guha explains. "You can pause on the expectation that things are going to move in a more disinflationary direction. But...you're only cutting upon substantial further realized growth in moving toward inflation heading back toward target," he says. "A severe enough episode..could stomp out the Fed's focus on realized inflation progress." You can watch Guha's entire interview with Brad Smith and Julie Hyman here. Key Video Moments 00:00:21: Fed's inflation objective 00:00:47: The bar for pausing vs. cutting