Fed’s Williams - Fed to begin shrinking balance sheet later this year

San Francisco Fed President Williams says the Fed will begin shrinking the balance sheet later this year. 

Key quotes

US economy is as close as it has ever been to Fed’s two goals (inflation and employment)

Gradually raising rates will prevent US economy from overheating

The latest thing the Fed wants to do is fuel unnecessary volatility of disruption

The underlying economic trend is very positive, confident economy continues to grow

The pullback in global trade integration will be pretty negative

While there has been soft inflation data in the past couple of months, medium-term trend is still pretty favourable