Fed sound bite: Fed minutes hint at cautious rate cuts if inflation stagnates

Federal Reserve officials at their meeting earlier this month discussed the possibility of slowing or pausing interest rate cuts if progress in lowering inflation stagnates, writes Nick Timiraos, ‘The Fed's Sounding Board’. According to Fed minutes released Tuesday, officials argued that if the economy performed in line with their expectations that inflation would continue to decline steadily, then ‘a gradual move toward a more neutral interest rate setting might be appropriate.’ All 19 officials involved in the discussion agreed to cut the Fed's benchmark short-term rate by 25 percentage points, the minutes showed. Some policymakers argued that the risk of a more pronounced slowdown in the job market or the economy had diminished since the September meeting. Many of them also said there was greater uncertainty about exactly where interest rates should be set in an economy that needs neither stimulus nor monetary restraint. Those considerations ‘made a gradual reduction in policy constraint appropriate’, the minutes said.