On Wednesday morning local time, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell went to Capitol Hill for his semi-annual testimony.

At the meeting, Powell continued to be "hawkish" and said that the Fed was in no rush to cut interest rates until policymakers are convinced that they have won the war on inflation.

He said that "it may be appropriate to start cutting interest rates at some point this year" but that it was not ready yet:

"The Committee does not anticipate lowering the target range until it is more confident that inflation is sustainably moving toward 2 percent."

Powell reiterated the language used at the January 31 press conference, saying:

"We believe our policy rates may be at the peak of this tightening cycle."

"If the economy evolves broadly as expected, it may be appropriate to begin easing policy restrictions at some point this year. However, the economic outlook is uncertain and there is no guarantee that continued progress towards our 2% inflation target will be sustained."

After the speech was released, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield continued to fall.

The three major U.S. stock futures indexes were little volatile before the market opened.

The U.S. dollar index rose by about 10 points in the short term.

Recently released economic data shows that the road to "anti-inflation" is still bumpy and the labor market is still resilient. The "small non-farm" ADP employment data released earlier showed that employment rebounded more than expected, and wage growth for job-changers accelerated for the first time in more than a year; core PCE rebounded to 0.4% month-on-month in January, the largest increase in the past year.

This Friday, the market will also usher in the February non-farm payrolls report, and Powell will continue to testify before Congress on Thursday.