Federal Reserve board member Lael Brainard said on April 5 that Fed policy-makers could start shrinking its balance sheet “at a rapid pace” from May.

Brainard declared that “it is of paramount importance to get inflation down”. She promised the Federal Open Market Committee would “continue tightening monetary policy methodically through a series of interest rate increases”.

Her comments came a day before the Fed published the minutes of the March 15–16 FOMC meeting. The minutes said that ‘all