In his last appearance before the Fed raised interest rates in early May, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell is likely to strengthen expectations of a 50 basis point rate hike.

According to Bloomberg, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, Bank of England Governor Pele and other policy makers will participate in a panel discussion on the global economy and give a speech on inflation at 1:00 on Friday, April 22, Beijing time.

Mr Powell had previously said that if one or more meetings in the future deemed it necessary to raise interest rates by more than 25 basis points, the Fed would implement the plan, hinting that it would raise interest rates by 50 basis points at the FOMC meeting in May to curb the fiercest inflation since 1981.

Since then, a number of Fed officials have made several speeches to strengthen their expectation of raising interest rates by 50 basis points.。

The minutes of the March meeting showed that many people were in favour of raising interest rates by 50 basis points in March, but ended up opting for a more cautious 25 basis point increase because of the uncertainty of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Officials are expected to start shrinking their balance sheets by $95 billion a month to more than $1,000bn a year, and the decision is likely to be formally announced in May, according to the minutes.

Fed officials have also been on the lookout for nearly a week. Brainard, the Fed's future "number two", pointed out on April 13 that market pricing shows that the Fed will act "quickly". Raise interest rates this year to a level that will neither stimulate nor slow the economy. That means the fed will raise its policy rate to a neutral level of 2.4% from the current 0.25% mure 0.5%, with at least another 200 basis points tightened. In addition, the contraction will begin as early as June at the earliest.

On the same day, Federal Reserve Governor Waller said that the inflation figure was high, but not surprising, and that inflation was expected to peak and then begin to fall back. At the same time, he reiterated his support for raising interest rates by 50 basis points next month.

Economists from Bloomberg predict that the Fed will raise interest rates at every meeting remaining in 2022, but only one 50 basis point hike is expected, probably in May.

"I think Powell will be very hawkish and he will emphasize multiple interest rate hikes and a reduction in the balance sheet."Wells Fargo & Co interest rate strategy director Michael Schumacher said.