Money Minute Wednesday 20 November: the latest from the Fed

published 20 November 2019

Later today in the US, we get the minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent interest-rate setting meeting.

At the end of October, the Fed cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point.However, two Fed members voted to keep rates on hold. And since the meeting, Fed chairman Jerome Powell has been at pains to give the impression that there won't be any more cuts for now, unless there is a big change in the economic outlook.Markets will read closely to see just how strong the opposition to cutting rates really was.

The other issue of interest will be the Fed's ongoing intervention in the "repo" market.The Fed has been printing money to keep the cost of overnight interbank borrowing to its target rate. The Fed has stressed that this is not quantitative easing, but markets will be curious to read more about the rationale behind the move.