ChainCatcher news, the Fed meeting minutes released on Wednesday showed that at the July 30-31 meeting, "the vast majority of participants" believed that if the data continued to be close to expectations, it might be appropriate to relax policy at the next meeting. They also pointed out that "many" Fed officials believed that the interest rate stance was restrictive, and "some participants" believed that with inflationary pressures continuing to cool, unchanged interest rates would mean that monetary policy would increase the drag on economic activity.
The minutes also showed that while all Fed officials agreed to keep interest rates steady in July, "several" policymakers said that progress in rising unemployment and lower inflation "provided a reasonable case for lowering the target range by 25 basis points at this meeting, or that they might have voted for a rate cut." The vast majority said a rate cut might be appropriate at the next meeting if economic data continued to meet expectations. Regarding the inflation outlook, participants judged that recent data strengthened their confidence that inflation would continue to move toward 2%. Almost all participants believed that the factors that led to the recent slowdown in inflation would likely continue to put downward pressure on inflation in the coming months.