Fed April meeting minutes: The road to falling inflation is getting longer and longer

According to a report from Caixin, at 2am on Thursday Beijing time, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of its policy meeting from April 30th to May 1st. As expected by the market, Federal Reserve officials emphasized that policy rates need to be maintained at current levels for longer than previously expected due to disappointing inflation data.In the decision announced on May 1st, the Federal Reserve's monetary policy committee kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5.25%-5.50% for the sixth consecutive time. At the same time, it announced that from June, the speed of reducing holdings of government bonds would be reduced from $60 billion to $25 billion per month.The minutes of the meeting stated that the committee members present believed that compared to the continuous slowdown in inflation last year, there has been no further progress towards the 2% target in recent months. Although some members tried to explain that "abnormal seasonal distortions caused the rise in January data" or "some items with large long-term price fluctuations pushed up inflation", other members pointed out that "price increases are widespread and should not be overly ignored".After a series of discussions, the committee members reached the most important conclusion in the entire report: interest rate cuts may have to wait. The attendees pointed out that they continue to expect inflation to return to 2% in the medium term, but recent data has not increased their confidence in the decline of inflation. Therefore, the process of reducing inflation may take longer than previously expected. Even "several attendees" stated that if the risk of further inflation rises in some form, they would be willing to further tighten policies. All officials agreed that it is not appropriate to cut interest rates until they have greater confidence in inflation falling to 2%.