Collins: Direction Is Clear, but She Won’t Pre-Commit

The Collins more rate hikes question is being framed by a Reuters headline after a Friday Bloomberg Television interview, and that headline is not her sentence. Boston Fed President Susan M. Collins, a 2026 non-voter, a 2027 alternate, and a 2028 voter, appeared on the official Bloomberg TV interview, “Fed’s Collins Talks Inflation Risks, Rate Policy and AI,” later the same morning as her 9:10 AM ET housing opener at the Boston Fed’s 70th Economic Conference. Use the interview for the policy-path lines. The opener is a separate event, and it is not a hike call. She does not vote at the Dec. 8–9 meeting.

The wording below is from the English captions on Bloomberg Television’s official YouTube upload. Reuters’ typography sometimes inserts a comma and cleans contractions; the typographic quotes here follow the captions.

Collins more rate hikes: what the captions say, and what they don’t

Two lines are the pull quotes. First: “So I think it’s clear the direction that monetary policy needs to go, and I would think that soon some additional firming tightening of policy is appropriate.” Second: “I think it may be that a bit of a tighter policy path than I had penciled in a couple of months ago might be appropriate.”

She was asked about a December hike, about a 50 basis point December move raised as a possibility by Governor Christopher Waller, and about Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan’s idea of moving a second hike into January. She did not take either increment. The appropriate direction for policy, she said, is clear, but she does not want to get ahead on how high the Committee should go, or how fast. How high and how quickly is something the Committee will have to decide meeting by meeting, and she is open-minded as she thinks that through. She is not seeing medium-to-longer-term inflation expectations unmooring at this stage. Her best-case scenario is that a careful adjustment of policy is appropriate at this time, with scenarios where she might think about that somewhat differently. Do not write that she endorsed a 50 basis point December move, or that she ruled one out.

On the data, she does not put too much stock in any one release, but what she is seeing is consistent with inflation that is too high, and with evidence of broadening price pressures in this week’s CPI. She had not done a deep dive on the PPI numbers yet; the numbers, she said, are less promising than she might have hoped. The labor market is probably on a bit more solid footing, and growth has been quite resilient. Energy is clearly one of the drivers, including transportation and food, but she sees the story as broader than that, with demand quite solid and quite healthy. She also said she is seeing evidence that financial markets are stable and functioning very well.

She does not vote in December

The official FOMC membership and Reserve Bank rotation page is the source for the labels. Collins is a 2026 non-voter and is not a 2026 alternate. She is a 2027 alternate, and she votes in 2028. San Francisco Fed President Mary C. Daly is a 2026 alternate and a 2027 voter. New York Fed President John C. Williams is a 2026 Committee member and Vice Chair. Collins’s Friday remarks inform the path; they are not a December vote.

Daly’s Friday appearance is a different event

Daly spoke Friday at 12:00 PM ET, 9:00 AM PT, at UNLV’s 2026 Economic Forecast in Henderson, Nevada, a different event from Thursday’s SIEPR forum. The San Francisco Fed event page confirms the venue and time. No official transcript of the conversation is up. Friday wire bullets that paraphrase a further-tightening message are not official text and are not quoted here. An X paraphrase of her economic color does not itself say more hikes, and it is not treated as a hike call.

RateWatch, as of 4:07 PM ET

As of 4:07 PM ET on Nov. 13, 2026, RateWatch — our ZQ futures method, never CME FedWatch — prices the Dec. 9 meeting as a 100% hike and a 0% hold, with +25 bp at 93.9% and +50 bp at 6.1%. The same stamp prices the Jan. 27 meeting at 71.2% hike / 28.8% hold, and the March 17 meeting at 66.7% hike / 33.3% hold. The current target range is 3.75–4.00%. That is a single snapshot, not a path, and not a claim that Collins’s interview, Daly’s Friday appearance, Friday’s PPI print, or any third-party forecast moved those odds.

Separately, TheStreet this morning attributed to Bank of America a third-party call for quarter-point hikes in December, January, and March, with a peak of 4.5% to 4.75%. That is BofA’s forecast, not a Committee plan, and not a RateWatch level. This article does not use TheStreet’s market figure on a December 50 as ours.

What it means for 0DTE

Energy: A 2026 non-voter said the direction of policy is clear and that soon some additional firming tightening is appropriate, without taking a December 50 or a dated January step. Keep the Reuters headline off the pad as her words. A 50 bp December hike remains a minority outcome on the 4:07 PM ET RateWatch stamp.

Premium: Thursday’s official close, Nov. 12, was S&P 500 7,592.40, VIX 18.70, and VIX1D 15.99, from Massive’s daily aggregates. Use that settled close as the last official reference until Friday’s official close is in. Do not treat an unofficial Friday print as the close.

Structure: Defined-risk structures only. A caption-verified interview is not a reason to size into a 25-versus-50 guess.

Plan: Keep the two Bloomberg TV caption quotes, the Reuters headline labeled as the outlet’s frame, her 2026 non-voter status, and the single RateWatch stamp as of 4:07 PM ET Nov. 13 on the pad. For a walkthrough of how we map a session onto a defined-risk plan, see how to plan 0DTE market scenarios.

For two other pieces from this week, see Williams on more hikes likely and Bessent vs Goolsbee on the energy shock.

Related reading

• Williams on more hikes likely
• Bessent vs Goolsbee on the energy shock
• October CPI 2026
• October PPI 2026
• Warsh on AI and inflation
• RateWatch
• December Fed meeting 2026
• FOMC voters 2026
• FOMC meeting schedule 2026
• FOMC Alerts