Next Year, the Number of Hawkish Voting Members at the Federal Reserve May Increase to at Least Three

According to Deep Tide TechFlow news on December 20, as reported by Jin Shi, next year's annual change in the composition of the Federal Reserve FOMC voting members may slightly increase resistance to further rate cuts. Compared to the outgoing voting members, the incoming voting members are more inclined towards hawkishness. TD Securities analyst Oscar Munoz stated, 'This opens the door for more dissenting votes next year.'

At the December FOMC meeting, 4 of the 19 Federal Reserve decision-makers wrote down forecasts that they believed a rate cut was inappropriate. Cleveland Fed President Mester cast a dissenting vote as a voting member. Mester will exit the FOMC next year, to be replaced by Chicago Fed President Goolsbee, who believes that the policy interest rate needs to be significantly lowered next year, clearly more dovish than Mester. However, the other two new voting members—St. Louis Fed President Bullard and Kansas City Fed President George—will make the 2025 voting members' stance more hawkish as they will replace the centrist Atlanta Fed President Bostic and San Francisco Fed President Daly.

TD Securities analysts speculate that Bullard is one of the four policymakers who submitted forecasts opposing this rate cut, with another possibly being George, both of whom have indicated some hesitation towards further rate cuts. The fourth could be Fed Governor Bowman, who opposed a 50 basis point cut in September but may have shifted to support this week's cut during the two-day meeting.