Fed meeting minutes indicate interest rates could remain high for 'some time'

foxbusiness.com:

UBS Private Wealth Management financial adviser Sarah Ponczek and Lou Basenese discuss how rising interest rates and inflation are impacting markets on 'Mornings with Maria.'

Federal Reserve officials struck a more cautious note during their September policy-setting meeting amid the increasingly uncertain economic outlook, with policymakers divided over the need for additional interest-rate hikes this year.

Minutes from the U.S. central bank's Sept. 19-20 meeting released Wednesday showed that central bank officials are cognizant about the detriments of raising interest rates so high that they cause unemployment to jump and trigger a recession – even as many penciled in another rate increase this year.

«A majority of participants judged that one more increase in the target federal funds rate at a future meeting would likely be appropriate, while some judged it likely that no further increases would be warranted,» the meeting minutes said.

FED SKIPS AN INTEREST RATE HIKE, BUT HIGH MORTGAGE RATES COULD BE HERE TO STAY

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell attends a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee meeting in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 21, 2022. (Chen Mengtong/China News Service via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The meetings indicated that all members of the Federal Open Market Committee agreed to «proceed carefully» on future rate decisions, which they said would hinge on forthcoming economic data releases. 

Even as officials were split over the need for additional rate increases, they agreed that «policy should remain restrictive for some time until the Committee is confident that inflation is moving down sustainably toward its objective.»

Officials voted at the meeting to hold interest rates