Eastern time on November 21, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of the October interest rate meeting.

According to the minutes, all participants agreed that it would be appropriate to maintain a restrictive policy stance for some time until inflation was clearly declining on a sustained basis towards the Federal Open Market Committee's objective. Participants also noted that the process of continuing to reduce the size of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet was an important part of the overall approach to achieving macroeconomic objectives.

At the October meeting, participants noted that economic activity had expanded at a strong pace in the third quarter and was resilient. While the labor market remains tight, overall, job growth has slowed since earlier this year and there are signs that labor market supply and demand are getting better balanced.

While inflation has moderated since the middle of last year, it remains well above the 2 percent longer-run objective, and participants were firmly committed to bringing inflation down to that objective. Participants also noted that tightening financial and credit conditions facing households and businesses could weigh on economic activity, hiring, and inflation.

In the light of the aforementioned economic conditions, all participants agreed that it would be appropriate to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 5.25% to 5.5% at the October meeting and indicated that maintaining this restrictive stance of policy would facilitate further progress toward the Committee's objectives, while allowing more time to gather additional information to assess progress.

The minutes noted that market participants expected the federal funds rate to be at or near its peak and to remain there at least until the June 2024 FOMC meeting.

In their discussion of the outlook for policy, participants continued to view it as critical that the stance of monetary policy remain sufficiently restrictive to return inflation, over time, to the Committee's 2 percent objective. All participants agreed that the Committee was proceeding cautiously and that policy decisions at each meeting would continue to be based on incoming overall information and its implications for the economic outlook and the balance of risks.

Participants noted that if coming information indicated insufficient progress toward the Committee's inflation objective, further tightening of monetary policy would be appropriate. Participants expected that data in the coming months would help to discern the extent to which the disinflationary process had persisted, how aggregate demand was slowing in the face of tighter financial and credit conditions, and how labor market supply and demand were better balanced.

A number of participants commented that while economic activity was resilient and the labor market continued to be strong, downside risks to economic activity remained. These risks include the potential larger-than-expected impact of tighter financial and credit conditions on aggregate demand and bank, corporate, and household balance sheets, continued weakness in the commercial real estate sector, and potential disruptions to global oil markets.

In discussing the economic outlook, participants' economic forecasts were similar to those of the previous September, with fourth-quarter GDP growth expected to slow significantly from the third quarter, while GDP growth in the second half of the year would average slightly higher than in the first half. With the lagged effects of monetary policy actions restraining economic activity, participants expected real GDP to grow at a slower pace than previously estimated over the next two years and expected the unemployment rate to remain roughly unchanged through 2026. This is because the impact of real GDP falling below potential output growth is offset by further improvements in Labour market functioning. By the end of the year, overall PCE price inflation will be close to 3.0% and core PCE inflation will be around 3.5%. As supply and demand in product and labor markets become more aligned, inflation is expected to decline over the next few years, with headline and core PCE price inflation projected to approach 2 percent by 2026.以上翻译结果来自有道神经网络翻译（YNMT）· 通用场景