(Bloomberg) -- Three more Federal Reserve officials pushed back against the depth of interest-rate cuts expected by markets next year, reinforcing similar comments from other US central bank officials last week. 

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said he was surprised by the outsize market reaction to the Fed’s updated quarterly economic projections last week. Those new forecasts signaled that the Fed’s next move is likely a cut, leading to a rally in asset prices and bets of as many as six cuts starting as early as March.

“I was confused a bit with the — was the market just imputing, ‘here’s what we want them to be saying?’” Goolsbee said Monday in an interview on CNBC. “I thought there seemed to be some confusion about how the FOMC even works. We don’t debate specific policies speculatively about the future.”

Separately, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly in interviews published Monday suggested that expectations for rate cuts early next year were premature. Both officials will vote on monetary policy decisions in 2024.

Policymakers kept rates unchanged for a third straight meeting on Dec. 13 and their forecasts imply they expect three rate cuts next year, according to the median forecast. 

Some Wall Street economists anticipate a steeper pace of easing. Bank of America Corp.’s economists now expect four quarter-point cuts in 2024, starting in March. 

A ‘Bit Ahead’

Mester said in an interview with the Financial Times published Monday that markets had gotten “a little bit ahead” of the central bank by betting on early interest-rate cuts in 2024. 

“The next phase is not when to reduce rates, even though that’s where the markets are at,” Mester said. “It’s about how long do we need monetary policy to remain restrictive in order to be assured that inflation is on that sustainable and timely path back to 2%.”

Daly, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said it’s appropriate for policymakers to begin contemplating rate cuts in 2024, given how much inflation has eased this year, but said it’s too soon to speculate on when they might happen.

“Right now, I’m really focused on how well things have evolved in 2023,” she said.

The remarks followed similar comments last week from New York Fed President John Williams and Atlanta Fed chief Raphael Bostic, who said policymakers still need to see “several months” of data to be confident that inflation will continue to fall.

Goolsbee on Monday called the cooling in prices this year “significant” but said they’re not yet back to the central bank’s target.

“If we get inflation back into the range of our dual mandate goals then we’ve got more symmetric concerns, let’s call it, about both sides of the dual mandate,” Goolsbee said.

Read More: Fed’s Goolsbee Says Too Early to Declare Victory Over Inflation

Consumer price data published last week showed that underlying inflation fell below 3% on a six-month annualized basis for the first time since 2021. Updated data on wholesale cost pressures also painted a favorable picture for a key inflation gauge watched closely by the central bank. 

A report due Friday will show how the Fed’s preferred gauge fared in November.

(Updates with Daly comments starting in fourth paragraph.)

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