FOMC minutes: Participants judged that risks had become more two-sided

<p>The Fed left rates unchanged at the Sept meeting.</p><p>Headlines from the minutes (<a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomcminutes20230920.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">full text</a>):</p><ul><li>Many participants saw downside risks to economic activity and upside risks to the unemployment rate</li><li>Vast majority of participants just future path of economy as highly uncertain</li><li>More evidence needed to be confident price pressures ebbing</li><li>Several participants commented that, with the policy rate likely at or
near its peak, the focus of monetary policy decisions and communications
should shift from how high to raise the policy rate to how long to hold
the policy rate at restrictive levels</li><li>Participants stressed that current inflation remained unacceptably high
while acknowledging that it had moderated somewhat over the past year.</li><li>All participants agreed that policy should remain restrictive for some
time until the Committee is confident that inflation is moving down
sustainably toward its objective</li><li>Several participants noted that the process of balance sheet runoff
could continue for some time, even after the Committee begins to reduce
the target range for the federal funds rate.</li><li>The economic forecast prepared by the staff for the September FOMC
meeting was stronger than the July projection, as consumer and business
spending appeared to be more resilient to tight financial conditions
than previously expected</li><li>The staff assumed that GDP growth for the rest of this year would be
damped a bit by the autoworkers' strike, with these effects unwound by a
small boost to GDP growth next year. The size and timing of these
effects were highly uncertain.</li></ul><p>The market reaction to the minutes has been negligible.</p>

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.