Susan M CollinsPresident of Federal Reserve Bank of Bostonreportedly said it is leaning towards a 25 basis point rate hike at the next FOMC meeting – a slowdown in the pace of rate hikes compared to the big hikes the central bank enacted over the past year in its fight against inflation.

“I think 25 or 50 would be appropriate; I’d be leaning toward 25 at this point, but it’s very data dependent,” Collins told The New York Times on Wednesday. “Slow adjustment gives more time to evaluate the incoming data before making a decision as we near our goal. Minor changes give us more flexibility,” she added.

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Collins is one of the 12 regional bank governors of the Federal Reserve and one of its 19 policy makers. It is notable that it does not have a formal vote on interest rate changes this year but will participate in the deliberations if the decision is made, the report said.

Major Wall Street indices ended in the green on Wednesday as optimism about a slowdown in inflation gained momentum the release of consumer price index data on Thursday. the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY closed 1.26% higher during the Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 QQQ gained 1.73%.

Rate target: The Boston Fed Chair said she favors raising interest rates to just over 5% this year, possibly in three-quarter-point increments in February, March and May.

“If we’ve moved to slower, more sensible rate hikes, it could take us three rate hikes to get there — and then staying until the end of 2023 still seems like a reasonable outlook to me,” she said, according to the audit report.

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photo via Brookings Institution on Flickr