Cautious US Federal Reserve sees interest rate hike 'approaching'

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve (Fed) was divided about whether the US economy is strong enough to withstand an interest rate increase at July's policy meeting, the minutes of the meeting showed Wednesday.

Although policy makers at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting viewed conditions getting closer to allowing the first rate hike in nearly nine years, they cited evidence that the time was not ripe.

As expected, the FOMC left unchanged the benchmark federal funds rate at the zero level, where it has been pegged since late 2008 to support the US economy's recovery from the Great Recession. But Fed Chair Janet Yellen has signalled that a hike is on track this year.

The record of the July 28-29 FOMC meeting gave no clear indication of when the Fed will pull the rate trigger, which some experts had put as early as the next FOMC meeting just four weeks away.

"In our view, the minutes have lowered the probability of liftoff in September and raised the probability for December," Nomura Global Economics said in a client note.

"It's clear... that the committee sees downside risk to its inflation outlook and it may need more evidence that inflation is moving in the right direction," it added.

Moody's Analytics analyst Ryan Sweet said the minutes confirmed that a rate hike at the September 16-17 meeting remained possible, but was "not a slam dunk, and we believe the odds have diminished over the past couple of weeks”.

FOMC participants highlighted tepid inflation, slack in the job market and low wage growth, and risks from China's economic slowdown as they considered raising near-zero borrowing costs.

"Most judged that the conditions for policy firming had not yet been achieved, but they noted that conditions were approaching that point," the minutes said.

Some FOMC participants emphasised the economy had made "significant progress" over the past few years and viewed conditions for a rate hike "as having been met or were confident that they would be met shortly."

A couple worried that an appreciable delay in hiking would result in an "undesirable increase in inflation" or otherwise hurt financial stability, while one member was ready to pull the trigger but would wait for additional data.

Officials generally agreed that job market conditions had improved. However, several noted that "some noticeable margins of slack remained", including a high share of employees working part time because full-time jobs were not available.

Tepid inflation concerns 

Some participants said they did not have enough information to make them "reasonably confident" that tepid inflation would move back to the Fed's 2 per cent target over the medium term, a key element of the Fed's dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment.

"Members are satisfied with improvements in the labour market, but it is inflation that has members leaning one way or the other," said Patrick Newport, US economist at IHS Global Insight.

"That's probably because the inflation numbers are a puzzle. The economy is nearing full employment, productivity has stalled, yet inflation shows no signs of taking off," he indicated.

Earlier Wednesday, the Labour Department reported consumer prices rose a mere 0.2 per cent in July year-over-year, extending a slow rise since April. 

China's slowdown also troubled Fed policy makers.

"While the recent Chinese stock market decline seemed to have had limited implications to date for the growth outlook in China, several participants noted that a material slowdown in Chinese economic activity could pose risks to the US economic outlook," the minutes said.

The FOMC meeting came before China's shock devaluation last week of the yuan, which many observers saw as a sign that its slowdown is deeper than thought.