FED: FOMC Minutes Preview: Emboldened Hawks Drop Dec Cut Pricing To 50/50 (1/3)

We'll be watching in the FOMC Minutes (1400ET) for the degree of expressed opposition to October's rate cut and color on the internal debate over whether to ease any further. Our full preview is here (PDF).

• At the press conference, Chair Powell highlighted FOMC division over prospects for a December cut: “there's a growing chorus now of feeling like maybe this is where we should at least wait a cycle, something like that”, and noted that the meeting minutes release would offer some more color on the internal debate. "In the Committee's discussions at this meeting, there were strongly differing views about how to proceed in December. A further reduction in the policy rate at the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion, far from it.”
• Powell didn’t quite endorse but likewise didn’t push back against the notion that the Fed could skip a December cut in light of the data “fog”: “what do you do if you are driving in the fog? You slow down…I don't know how that will play into things. We may get the data -- the data may come back, but there is a possibility it would make sense to be more cautious about moving. Again, I am not committing to that, but I am saying it is certainly a possibility that you would say, we really can't see, so let's slow down.”
• That appeared to raise the bar to what was already going to be a data-dependent cut in December: it may be that without tangible evidence of further labor market weakness and given apparent underlying strength in the economy, the FOMC’s default position may not be to ease again in December, but rather to wait to gather more information.
• Since the meeting it's been clear that the hawks have become more vocal and arguably more entrenched, with more reluctance to ease any further given the federal data "fog" that is only now slowly lifting.
• As such it’s little wonder market pricing has shifted from 80% for a follow-up cut in December to under 50% since the October meeting.
• We go through the key inter-meeting commentary by FOMC members in the above PDF preview - it clearly shows a widening range of opinions.