Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testified before Congress on Wednesday morning, with inflation at the center of his remarks. Many on Wall Street are looking closely to see if Powell will drop hints about the central bank's next decision. The chairman suggested that the Fed may be hesitant to cut rates so soon, preferring to wait for more inflation data to arrive. Morgan Stanley Chief Global Economist Seth Carpenter joins Yahoo Finance to discuss Powell's comments, the timing of rate cuts, and more. The pushback of the Fed's first rate cuts reflects global tendencies in central banking, Carpenter explains: "I will call out my colleague Chetan Ahya who is our Chief Asian Economist. and has been pretty adamant a lot of Asian central bankers will be waiting for the Fed. They don't want to move in front of the Fed and they don't want to put at risk any exchange rate stability. I think, to a lesser degree, across the Atlantic, we've got the European Central Bank. We technically in our forecasts have them cutting before the Fed by a matter of weeks so I don't think that really counts and so one question that I get from clients all the time is well, suppose for whatever reason the Fed doesn't cut at all this year, does that mean the ECB can't cut at all? I don't think the answer is not at all. It just means probably less than would have been the case if the Fed followed through with all of the cuts." For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live. Editor's note: This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino

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