cleveland fed president loretta mester said friday that she didn’t want to “shock” the economy with a 75 basis point interest rate hike at the fed’s next meeting in may “i favor a more methodical approach rather than a shock of a 75 basis point i don’t think it’s needed with what we’re trying to do with our policy” mester said in an interview on cnbc us stocks recovered a little ground after mester’s comments the dow jones industrial average djia was still down 752 points but well off the session lows of 892 points the sp 500 index spx is on track for its biggest oneday loss since march 7 asked if the ugly day on wall street on friday was part of the fed’s plan to create tighter financial conditions mester replied “well yes but not necessarily all at once” the fed is committed to get inflation under control mester said the cleveland fed president who is a voting member of the fed’s interestrate committee this year said she wanted to get the fed’s benchmark rate up to around 25 by the end of the year she backed a 50 basis point move in may and “a few more” to get rates up to her desired 25 level by yearend she said she favored “frontloading” these hikes which points to bigger moves in june and july than later in the year on thursday fed chairman jerome powell backed moving quickly to raise rates this has cemented expectations of a 50basis point move in may