US Fed Policy Announcement (Oct)

The Fed cut its policy rate by an additional 25bp today, to between 3.75% and 4.00%, but the vote was a little more balanced than we had expected. While Trump-appointee Stephen Miran again voted for a bigger 50bp reduction, Kansas Fed President Jeffery Schmid unexpectedly voted to leave rates unchanged. Despite that hawkish dissent from Schmid, with the ongoing government shutdown now likely to delay the resumption of economic data releases for October and November until at least mid-December, we suspect that the Fed will cut its policy rate again at the final FOMC meeting of the year, which concludes on 10^th December.