Most Federal Reserve officials wanted to keep borrowing costs high “for some time”, according to minutes of their meeting in December, adding to doubts that the US central bank is poised to begin cutting interest rates as early as March.
While officials expressed optimism that the Fed was quelling inflation, they were also careful not to commit to any immediate loosening of monetary policy, according to a record of the meeting published on Wednesday.
Rate-setters “reaffirmed that it would be appropriate for policy to remain at a restrictive stance for some time until inflation was clearly moving down sustainably toward the Committee’s objective”, the minutes showed.