When Federal Reserve officials cut interest rates at a meeting this month, they avoided clearly hinting at what might come next, minutes from the gathering show.
The account of the central bank’s Nov. 6-7 meeting, released on Tuesday, offered few signals about whether Fed officials would be likely to cut interest rates at their gathering in December, or about how much they would be likely to lower them in 2025.
Fed officials raised rates in 2022 and 2023 to make borrowing more expensive, with a goal of slowing the economy and wrestling rapid inflation under control.
Because inflation has been cooling notably since peaking in 2022 and the job market has been showing signs of slowing, officials began to cut rates in September, and then made a second rate cut in November.
The goal was to ease off the brakes, allowing the economy to slow gently without risking a painful crash.
Organizations:
Federal Reserve, Fed