Fed meeting minutes: Most participants favor rate cut in September
According to the PANews report on August 22, the minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting released on Wednesday showed that at the meeting held on July 30-31, "the vast majority of participants" believed that if the data continued to be close to expectations, it would be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting. They also pointed out that "many" Federal Reserve officials believed that the stance of interest rates was restrictive, and "some participants" believed that with the continued easing of inflationary pressures, keeping interest rates unchanged would mean that monetary policy would increasingly weigh on economic activity. The minutes also showed that although all Federal Reserve officials agreed to keep interest rates stable in July, "a few" policymakers said that the rise in the unemployment rate and the progress made in lowering inflation "provided a reasonable justification for lowering the target range by 25 basis points at this meeting, or they might have voted for a rate cut." The vast majority said that if economic data continued to meet expectations, a rate cut at the next meeting would likely be appropriate. Regarding the inflation outlook, the participants judged that the recent data had strengthened their confidence in inflation continuing to move towards 2%. Almost all participants believed that the factors that had led to the recent easing of inflation were likely to continue to exert downward pressure on inflation in the coming months.
