The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) December meeting minutes were published Wednesday afternoon US time:
- FOMC minutes: Most participants emphasized 'flexibility and optionality' on rates
- FOMC responses incoming (spoiler: plenty more tightening to come from the Federal Reserve)
From Nick Timiraos in the Wall Street Journal after the minutes:
- Federal Reserve officials offered uncharacteristically blunt words of warning to investors that cautioned against underestimating the central bank’s determination to hold interest rates at higher levels to bring down inflation.
- many Fed officials are anxious they won’t be able to defeat inflation unless they can slow the economy by tightening financial conditions, such as by raising borrowing costs or lowering stock prices
Why the attention on this guy? As I posted last year:
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Back in June Timiraos dropped the bombshell during the Federal Reserve blackout period:
WSJ Fedwatcher Nick Timiraos is just out with a new report previewing the FOMC.
"A string of troubling inflation reports in recent days is likely to lead Federal Reserve officials to consider surprising markets with a larger-than-expected 0.75-percentage-point interest rate increase at their meeting this week," he writes.
The report is speculation but it taps into the old-style Fed leaks.
That post, as was Timiraos, was spot-on.
Timiraos has thus been crowned the new Hilsenrath (you may remember his role during the Bernanke Fed as a provider of Fed-insider info).
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The article in the Wall Street Journal (linked above, gated) is not a bombshell like the leak in June was, but it is instructive. The rate hike cycle is not over and looks to me that it'll go beyond what many are expecting. I'd love to be wrong on this.
