MNI BRIEF: Powell Comfortable With Financial Stability Risks

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday banks remain well-capitalized and households in aggregate are in good shape financially, expressing little concern about financial stability risks as the central bank eases interest rates. 

"It's not a time of elevated elevated financial stability risks," Powell told the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce in Providence, Rhode Island. The Fed chair noted that markets are "elevated relative to historical levels."

"We're not targeting any level of prices for particular financial assets. We don't have a view that we know what the right price of any particular financial asset is. We do look at overall financial conditions, and we ask ourselves whether our policies are affecting financial conditions in a way that we are trying to achieve," he said. "By many measures, for example, equity prices are fairly highly valued."