KONTAN.CO.ID - WASHINGTON. A growing sense of uncertainty around the path of the U.S. economy, with volatile data and tightening financial markets posing risks to growth, pushed Federal Reserve policymakers into a newly cautious stance last month, a position reaffirmed by top U.S. central bank officials in a series of statements this week. Minutes of the Fed's Sept. 19-20 meeting showed policymakers wrestling with risks they agreed were no longer just about inflation, with world energy and food markets perhaps threatening a new surge in prices, but slowing global growth, labor strikes and tightening financial markets possibly clamping down on the economy in unexpected, and job-killing ways. "A vast majority of participants continued to judge the future path of the economy as highly uncertain," the minutes said, listing the plethora of reasons "supporting the case for proceeding carefully" before raising the Fed's benchmark overnight interest rate again.
Fed Officials Adopted More Cautious Stance in September as Economic Uncertainty Grew
KONTAN.CO.ID - WASHINGTON. A growing sense of uncertainty around the path of the U.S. economy, with volatile data and tightening financial markets posing risks to growth, pushed Federal Reserve policymakers into a newly cautious stance last month, a position reaffirmed by top U.S. central bank officials in a series of statements this week. Minutes of the Fed's Sept. 19-20 meeting showed policymakers wrestling with risks they agreed were no longer just about inflation, with world energy and food markets perhaps threatening a new surge in prices, but slowing global growth, labor strikes and tightening financial markets possibly clamping down on the economy in unexpected, and job-killing ways. "A vast majority of participants continued to judge the future path of the economy as highly uncertain," the minutes said, listing the plethora of reasons "supporting the case for proceeding carefully" before raising the Fed's benchmark overnight interest rate again.