Federal Reserve officials believed the conditions for a rate hike would be met in December, minutes of the Fed's latest monetary policy meeting showed on Wednesday.
"Most participants anticipated that, based on their assessment of the current economic situation and their outlook for economic activity, the labor market, and inflation , those conditions could well be met by the time of the next meeting," according to minutes of the Fed's Oct. 27-28 meeting released on Wednesday.
The Fed has been keeping the key interest rates at nearly zero for about seven years given the U.S. economy is slowly recovering from the worst financial crisis in decades. The minutes showed that some participants thought that the conditions for beginning the policy normalization process had already been met. Nonetheless, most participants emphasized that the actual decision would depend on the implications for the medium-term economic outlook of the data received over the upcoming intermeeting period.
A number of participants voiced concerns that a delay in policy firming could increase uncertainty in financial market and build up financial imbalances. They also worried that a decision to defer policy firming could be interpreted as a lack of confidence in the strength of the U.S. economy or erode the Committee's credibility.
Since the October meeting, a number of Fed officials have spelt out that a rate hike in December was on the table. In congressional testimony on Nov. 4, Fed Chair Jenet Yellen said a December rate hike a "live possibility" if the economy performs as expected.
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