Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said yesterday that a pause in tightening in September might be a good idea, because market responses had been “far stronger than what we’ve historically seen.” “I want to make sure I truly understand the pace of change that’s associated with our policy response,” Bostic said.

By September, some of the uncertainty over the economy could be resolved. Bostic expected that could lead to a “pretty significant reduction in inflation.”

Yet, he’s “fully comfortable” to raise interest rates above neutral if inflation doesn’t come down. “The goal is to get inflation down. We’ve got to really tackle it in an intentional, persistent way,” he said. “I want to be open to both possibilities.”

The minutes from FOMC meeting on July 25-26 signal a clear division within the committee regarding the path of future monetary tightening, with a slight inclination towards a hawkish stance.

Despite this, market anticipation for immediate rate adjustments remains tepid. Fed fund futures indicate an 86.5% chance that Fed will maintain the status quo in September, with less than 50% probability of a rate hike by year-end.

On the stock front, NASDAQ felt the heat, declining by 1.15%, possibly reacting to Fed’s deliberations.

Within the minutes, one point was underscored: “With inflation still well above the Committee’s longer-run goal and the labor market remaining tight, most participants continued to see significant upside risks to inflation.”

Yet, counterpoints highlighted potential economic vulnerabilities and concerns about unemployment, with some members noting, “there continued to be downside risks to economic activity and upside risks to the unemployment rate.”

Additionally, a number of participants judged that risks to achieve inflation target “had become more two sided”, and wanred of the risk of “inadvertent overtightening of policy against the cost of an insufficient tightening.”

FOMC minutes here.

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said at an event overngiht that the strength of the economy might necessitate higher interest rates for an extended period.

Kashkari commented, “If the economy is fundamentally much stronger than we realized, on the margin, that would tell me rates probably have to go a little bit higher, and then be held higher for longer to cool things off.”

In line with last week’s updated dot plot from Fed, where 12 out of 19 members indicated a potential rate hike this year, Kashkari affirmed his position, stating, “I’m one of those folks.”

However, Kashkari also pointed out a caveat, suggesting the possibility of rate cuts if inflation undergoes a swift decline next year. He elaborated, “Depending on what is happening in all the economic data that we look at, that then might justify backing off the federal funds rate — not to ease policy but just to stop it from getting tighter from here, and that’s something obviously we’ll have to look at.”

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said Fed is “nowhere near almost done”, with inflation. “We have made a good start and I feel really pleased with where we’ve gotten to at this point.”

“It really would be premature to unwind all of that and say the job is done,” she said. “I also think that we’ve been with this high inflation for a while, and really getting too confident that we’ve already solved the problem,” Daly said, adding that the Fed needs to “keep committed until we actually see it in the data.”