September S&P 500 E-Mini futures (ESU24) are up +0.07%, and September Nasdaq 100 E-Mini futures (NQU24) are up +0.08% this morning as investors looked ahead to U.S. business activity data and the start of the Jackson Hole Symposium.
The minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s July 30-31 meeting, released Wednesday, revealed that several Federal Reserve officials acknowledged there was a “plausible case” for reducing the central bank’s policy rate. “All participants supported maintaining the target range for the federal funds rate at 5.25 to 5.50 percent, although several observed that the recent progress on inflation and increases in the unemployment rate had provided a plausible case for reducing the target range 25 basis points at this meeting or that they could have supported such a decision,” according to the FOMC minutes. Policymakers noted at the July meeting that inflation had moderated and that there had been “some further progress” toward the 2% goal in recent months. “The vast majority observed that, if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting,” the minutes said.
