Food minutes keep doves at bay. Wall Street Falls
The market is more concerned with the question of how long interest rates will be maintained in a constrained zone than with what exactly their peak will be.
Wall Street ended the session in negative territory, as investors digested the content of the minutes referring to the last monetary policy meeting of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) in July.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased by 0.52% 34,765.64 pointswhile the Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) decreased by 0.76% 4,404.32 pointsafter closing below the average price of the last 50 days.
The Nasdaq Technology Composite Index – the most sensitive to monetary policy – fell 1.15% to 13474.63 points.
Investors found signs that the monetary authority led by Jerome Powell will maintain its tight monetary policy.
Monetary policy analysts and commentators have noted, in recent weeks, that the market is more attentive to the question of how long interest rates will be maintained in the bound zone than they will be exactly when they peak.
In the minutes released on Wednesday, it was clear that after a pause in the cycle of rate hikes in the US in June, at the last meeting of the central bank, a return to consensual Fed rate increases was not forthcoming. This is because “some” members of the FOMC have indicated that “they are in favor of leaving the fed funds rate range unchanged.”
However, the committee members “continue to consider it essential that monetary policy remains restrictive enough to bring inflation down to the 2% target.”
“The Fed has no other choice until it is satisfied that inflation expectations” do not point to an increase, Steve Sosnick explains, in remarks to Bloomberg. For Interactive Brokers’ chief strategist, “Although two Fed members preferred to keep interest rates unchanged in July, this does not mean a turning point.”
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