Fed meeting minutes to offer clues on future rate hike appetite
By Michael S. Derby
(Reuters) — Federal Reserve meeting minutes from the June policy gathering to be released on Wednesday are likely to show an active debate among policymakers who still on balance appear inclined to support more action to tame inflation.
The meeting minutes, due at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), will arrive after U.S. central bank officials have spent the last three weeks following the June Federal Open Market Committee meeting sketching out their policy outlooks. Key officials like Fed Chair Jerome Powell have pointed to forecasts released at that gathering indicating that a half percentage point's more tightening this year was very much still in play.
“The committee clearly believes that there's more work to do, that there are more rate hikes that are likely to be appropriate" at some point over the course of the year, Powell said last Wednesday in an appearance with other central bank chiefs in Portugal. “Although policy is restrictive, it's not, it may not be restrictive enough and it has not been restrictive for long enough," which keeps alive prospects for more increases, Powell said.
But some feel enough has been done. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said last Thursday that he believes no more rate increases are needed, noting “the data, survey results, and on-the-ground intelligence constitute a reasonable case that gradual disinflation will continue.” He added, «that will happen even if the Committee does not increase the federal funds rate.”
The minutes will describe the deliberations that allowed the Fed, after just over a year of very aggressive rate rises, to maintain its overnight target rate at between 5% and 5.25%. It stood at near zero levels in March 2022 and has risen swiftly as Fed
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