When Will the Fed Finally Start Down the Mountain?
The US looks lonelier than ever at peak rates. The FOMC’s options seem to be a first cut, or a step toward it.
Everyone else is already heading down.
Photographer: Matthew Williams-Ellis/Universal/Getty Images
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Exactly a year after its last rate hike, a good run of economic data has the Federal Reserve closing in on its first cut since March 2020, but it’s still not clear when it will happen. Markets are more than 100% certain of a quarter-basis-point cut in September. But coordinating between central banks remains perilous. In a 32-hour period on Wednesday and Thursday, the Bank of Japan, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England will all meet to decide on monetary policy, and it’s quite possible that each will move in a different direction. The emerging story of other global central banks’ attempts to make a descent from peak interest rates — which we collate in this latest installment of The Year of Descending Dangerously — shows that moving will be difficult.