Stock market today: S&P 500 drops for fifth day as focus shifts to Powell’s speech
Investing.com -- Federal Reserve policymakers continued to echo a patient approach on further rate cuts pointing to early signs of tariff-induced inflation that suggest it would be appropriate to wait for clarity on the full impact of President Trump’s tariffs, according to the minutes of the Fed’s July 29-30 meeting.
"Participants assessed that the effects of higher tariffs had become more apparent in the prices of some goods but that their overall effects on economic activity and inflation remained to be seen," the Fed minutes showed. "They also noted that it would take time to have more clarity on the magnitude and persistence of higher tariffs’ effects on inflation," it added.
At the conclusion of its July meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, voted to keep its benchmark rate to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, but two Fed governors, Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller, voted against the decision--the first double dissent since 1993.
Bowman and Waller have raised concerns about the weakness in the labor market, which they view as a greater risk compared to inflation becoming unanchored. But their views are in the minority at the Fed.
"A majority of participants judged the upside risk to inflation as the greater of these two risks..." but a "couple of participants considered downside risk to employment the more salient risk," the minutes showed.
While the incoming economic data since the fed’s decision to stand pat on rates last month, have been mixed as core CPI surprised to the upside and the labor market to the downside, market participants appear to learning toward Bowman and Waller’s view: Unemployment rather than inflation is the bigger risk.
A rate cut for the September is now mostly priced in, according to Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
The cycle of rate cuts, however, may be limited, the minutes suggest, because broader financial conditions were "either neutral or supportive of stronger economic activity."
The minutes come just days ahead of the Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s annual speech at the Jackson Hole central bank meeting, slated for Friday. The Fed chief has previously used the annual central bank symposium as a platform to provide fresh monetary policy clues. Investors will be eager to see whether Powell’s remarks embrace or cool lofty rate-cut expectations.