JACKSON HOLE, Wyo.- Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh signaled the central bank may not be done fighting inflation, saying financing conditions didn't look restrictive to him and that better price readings recently hadn't convinced him the trend was improving. "We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do," he said in first speech as Fed chairman, a highly anticipated debut at the Kansas City Fed's annual symposium in Wyoming.

Warsh stopped short of saying whether he would support raising rates when the Fed meets next month and offered no path for policy, in keeping with his approach to how the central bank should communicate less about coming moves. "I stand here today committed to a discipline, not to a decision," he said.

He described an economy showing few signs of restraint from the Fed's current rate of around 3.6%. "Credit and loan markets are showing few signs of policy restraint," he said. Despite some signs of strain in housing and agriculture, "on balance, I would be hard pressed to describe broad financial conditions as restrictive."

The remarks provided the fullest account Warsh has given of how he reads an economy that has split the central bank since he took over this spring. Three officials voted last month to raise rates, and others have signaled they are open to joining them.

The disagreement turns on whether inflation has stayed above the Fed's 2% target because of one-off shocks such as tariffs and the Iran war, or because demand is running ahead of supply and letting businesses make price increases stick.

Warsh said that he believed last month that "the wiser course was to await new information," particularly given "possible developments in supply chains, investment flows, and geopolitics-before deciding whether a change in interest rate policy was advisable."

Softer inflation readings in June and July had eased pressure on the Fed to raise rates in September, with market-implied probabilities of a hike falling below 40% earlier this month.

This summer's readings "were better than expected," Warsh said, but "they do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved." He highlighted the breadth of price increases: About half the items in the Fed's preferred inflation basket are rising faster than 3%, against roughly a third in the two decades before the pandemic.