Richmond Fed’s Barkin: Fed has signaled a ‘gradual’ approach

Barkin's emphasis on pacing rather than direction is the tell: the debate inside the Fed has shifted from whether to move to how fast, and that distinction matters more for rate-sensitive assets than any single data point. His comment that businesses face substantial cost pressures keeps the inflation side of the ledger live, which tempers how much relief markets can read into a "gradual" path. The open question is whether that framing survives the coming period of data he cited, since a gradual approach is only credible if the cost pressures he flagged actually ease.