ChainCatcher news, during this week's speech, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee and Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman expressed starkly different views on the theoretical neutral interest rate level. The neutral interest rate refers to the rate that allows the Fed's various economic goals to achieve balance.

Goolsbee emphasized that the Fed needs to lower interest rates further to reach this level—he called this rate "far below where we currently are." Bowman, on the other hand, stated, "We might be closer to a neutral policy stance than currently believed." Will Compernolle of FHN Financial noted that given the neutral interest rate range estimated anonymously by Fed officials in September was between 2.375% and 3.75%, such a divergence is not surprising.