Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker told CNBC “No. Not right now”, when asked if he sees a case for further rate cut. He explained, “the labor markets are strong, inflation is moving up slowly — but with the last CPI print, it was a good print,”

On the current interest rate, he said: “We’re roughly where neutral is. It’s hard to know exactly where neutral is, but I think we’re roughly where neutral is right now. And I think we should stay here for a while and see how things play out.”

Kansas City Fed President Esther George, who dissented the rate cut at July FOMC meeting, repeated her stance that the rate cut “wasn’t required”. She told CNBC that “with this very low unemployment rate, with wages rising, with the inflation rate staying close to the Fed’s target, I think we’re in a good place relative to the mandates that we’re asked to achieve.”

Though, she admitted that risks are tilted to the downside. She noted, “as you look at global growth weakening and as you look at the amount of uncertainty associated with some of these trade issues, I think both of those are weighing on the outlook. Whether they spill over in a way that we see in the real economy is what I’m watching for.”

Separately, she told Bloomberg TV that “We’re at a sort of equilibrium right now and I’d be happy to leave rates here absent seeing either some weakness or some strengthening, some kind of upside risk that would cause me to think rates should be somewhere else.”

The Minutes of July FOMC meeting showed that most members viewed the -25bps rate cut as “mid-cycle adjustment”, in response to the evolution of the economic outlook. That was in-line with Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s post meeting message that it’s not the start of a lengthy easing cycle. For any future adjustments, FOMC would “assess realized and expected economic conditions”, taking into account a wide range of information, including labor market, inflation, financial and international developments.

For those who voted for the cut, they sought to be “better position” the policy to counter effects from weak global growth and trade policy uncertainty, “insure” from downside risks and “promote” faster return of inflation to target. For the two dissenters, they noted larger positive economic data and anticipated “continued strong labor markets and solid growth in activity”.

Full minutes here.

In an op-ed article published in the Financial Times, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said Fed should use forward guidance now to stimulate the economy. He explained that “forward guidance can also provide stimulus by signalling that overnight rates will be low in the future.” That is, Fed can “influence long-term rates by giving guidance about the future path of their short-term equivalents. The firmer the Fed’s commitment, the more influence it can have.”

Kashkari added that “forward guidance should be used now, before the federal funds rate returns to zero.” He argued that “if a central bank cuts rates to zero in response to a downturn and then announces that it plans to keep rates low, that can actually be perceived as a sign of weakness rather than strength.” Instead, “it would be better to deploy guidance now in an effort to avoid hitting zero.

Regarding the guidance, he said “at a minimum, we should commit to not raising rates again until core inflation returns to our 2 per cent target on a sustained basis.”