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PremiumUS Fed Meet Live Highlights: The US Federal Reserve announced its interest rate decision on July 31 after a two-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, leaving the benchmark interest rates unchanged at 5.25 per cent - 5.50 per cent for the eighth straight meeting, in line with Wall Street estimates.
Fed chair Jerome Powell-led rate-setting panel ended its fifth policy-setting meeting for 2024 on July 31 and unanimously voted to keep the policy rate at the 23-year high. The US central bank has maintained borrowing rates steady for 12 straight months to bring down inflation in the world's largest economy.
Powell on Wednesday set the stage for the central bank's first rate cut in four years, citing greater progress toward lower inflation and a cooler job market that no longer threatens to overheat the economy. Powell said if US inflation continues to fall, “a reduction in our policy rate could be on the table" when the Fed next meets in September.
"The broad sense of the committee is that the economy is moving closer to the point at which it will be appropriate to reduce our policy rate," he said, adding that there had been a "really significant decline in inflation, but we’re not quite at that point." In its policy statement, the Fed mentioned that US inflation has eased over the past year but ‘’remains somewhat elevated''.
After raising the policy rate by 5.25 percentage points since March 2022 in one of the swiftest Fed reactions to combat the worst outbreak of inflation in 40 years, the central bank has held the rate on hold since July 2023 to anchor in high inflation and consistently bring it down toward the two per cent target range.
Stay tuned to our US Fed Meeting Live blog for the latest updates on FOMC meeting outcome.
