Federal Reserve officials are on a course to raise rates as soon as their December meeting, notes from their November meeting released Thursday suggest.
Nearly all members of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy committee thought that another increase in the central bank’s interest rate target would be warranted “fairly soon,” the minutes from the November meeting in Washington said.
“A few,” but only a few, were uncertain about the timing. The Fed does not reveal the names of individual officials in the minutes.
The Fed’s deliberations have received unusual publicity in recent months because of President Trump’s sustained criticism of the central bank and Chairman Jerome Powell for raising interest rates. Trump has alleged that the rate hikes have hurt the economy and undercut his agenda.
Before the release of the minutes Thursday, investors overwhelmingly expected the Fed to follow through with the fourth rate hike of the year at its upcoming December meeting. Yet there was increasing uncertainty about how much further the Fed would adjust rates in 2019.
On Wednesday, Powell said in New York that the Fed’s plans for rate hikes are not set in stone and that officials would change course, if needed, in reaction to incoming economic data.
That comment was interpreted by some observers as a sign that the Fed could hold off on further rate hikes, and stock markets soared after his comments.
Trump’s trade negotiations, meanwhile, did not appear to be an overriding concern at the November meeting. Officials discussed the risk to the economy of “an escalation in tariffs or trade tensions,” but only as one of several worries. The officials also fretted about high business debt and the possibility that inflation could fall persistently short of their 2 percent target and lower expectations for future inflation.
