Fed minutes to show disinflation to be largely driven by transitory factors – Barclays

Barclays’ Research Team offer their thoughts on the upcoming FOMC minutes of the Sept Fed meeting, which will be reported at 1800 GMT later on Wednesday.

Key Quotes:

“Given the outcome of the September FOMC meeting, in which only four participants indicated no further rate hikes this year was appropriate, we expect the FOMC minutes to show that most participants see recent disinflation as largely driven by transitory factors.

We expect the discussion to remain focused on inflation and its shortfall relative to what the Fed's Phillips curve framework would suggest, but we believe most participants will view the unexplained weakness as dissipating over time, thereby permitting a return of inflation to the target.

The minutes may indicate that members preferred to reduce their estimate of the long run neutral rate of interest as opposed to halting the normalization process.

Elsewhere, we expect the minutes to include discussion as to why it was time to begin balance sheet runoff and how members see the balance of risks to the outlook for the US economy.”