by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
“We’re balancing the risk of going too soon versus too late. There’s no guarantee in this. It’s a very difficult judgment call.”
Markets have been seeing at least a 25-basis-point cut by September with near-100% certainty. So at the post-FOMC meeting press conference, reporters hammered Powell relentlessly with repetitive and leading questions trying to get him to commit, via faux-pas or purposefully, to a September rate cut – after the FOMC statement studiously avoided any kind of comment about a September rate cut, but instead simply rebalanced the Fed’s focus on both of its mandates — inflation and employment — and not just on inflation.