June S&P 500 futures (ESM23) are trending up +0.12% this morning after three major U.S. benchmark indices ended the regular session in the red as market participants weighed recession risk following the minutes of the Fed’s March policy meeting while also awaiting crucial U.S. PPI data.
The minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s March 21-22 meeting showed that Federal Reserve policymakers debated between keeping its key rate unchanged or hiking it by another 25 basis points, with several participants saying that holding the target range steady “would allow more time to assess the financial and economic effects of recent banking-sector developments and the cumulative tightening of monetary policy.” “However, due to the potential for banking-sector developments to tighten financial conditions and to weigh on economic activity and inflation, they judged it prudent to increase the target range by a smaller increment at this meeting,” according to the minutes from the Fed’s March meeting. At the same time, Fed officials feared that fallout from the U.S. banking crisis could tilt the economy into a “mild recession” later this year, the minutes showed Wednesday.
