24/7 Wall St.

Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee from the September 18, 2007 meeting that were released October 9, 2007…. We glanced over the notes and here are some quick standout comments:

• Unanimous on decision to cut rates;
• Skeptical about payrolls numbers, but they were unanimous in decision to cut and trimmed economic outlook for rest of 2007 and 2008 with firming growth likely in 2009;
• Financial markets still fragile and concerns over weakening consumer spending;
• Grew more confident that inflationary pressures and concerns would come down.

This may at least give the FED RATE HOPEFULS with a slightly better argument that the FED is willing to further cut rates in light of recent economic numbers.  That may or may not be the case and with a possible dollar crisis the FOMC has some careful decisions to make on rate cuts or keeping rates where they are.  Traditionally there are no "one and done" moves, but we have a mostly new FOMC than under Greenspan so we aren’t endorsing a definite policy either way as of yet.

As a reminder, many of these initial market reactions change after more time has been given to absorb all of the data and the turns.  Here are the full FOMC MINUTES.

Jon C. Ogg
October 9, 2007