Federal Reserve news

Fed Chair Warsh says the committee believes that the accumulation of more information will help it determine the policy stance appropriate to ensure a timely return of inflation to the 2% goal and the committee will deliver price stability

Newsquawk Staff ·

  • Growth has strengthened.
  • Q3 GDP likely running above 3% growth, and business investment likely rising at about a double-digit pace.
  • Employment conditions are positive.
  • There responbility to get inflation down.
  • FOMC's discussion over the last couple of days focused mainly on the price stability side of its remit.
  • Since policy action in September, have started to see some changes in financial and credit conditions.

What it means

Remarks framed around waiting for more information before setting the policy stance are the standard holding formulation: they signal that the committee's centre of gravity has not settled on a direction, and they shift the burden onto the incoming data rather than committing to a path. The emphasis on the price stability side of the remit, alongside a characterization of growth as strong and employment as positive, is the combination that has historically kept the front end biased toward restrictive outcomes, since a committee comfortable with growth has little pressure to ease and ample latitude to stay tight. The reference to changes in financial and credit conditions since the prior policy action is the tell: in past episodes, officials citing easing in conditions have used it to argue that policy transmission is being offset, which has tended to underpin hawkish repricing of the terminal rate rather than the timing of cuts. Worth watching is whether the committee's language coalesces around this framing in the minutes and in subsequent speakers, and how the next inflation prints interact with a stated preference for information accumulation, since that formulation raises the sensitivity of each release. As commentary tied to a deliberation rather than a decision, the signal is directional, with the usual pattern being that such remarks anchor the repricing only if repeated across the committee.

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