The July FOMC meeting yielded the widely expected outcome of no policy change. Very little change in the statement either - pulling out any useful information is about as easy as reading tea leaves or chicken bones. But that won't stop me from trying! On net, I would count it was somewhat more hawkish as the Fed gears up to hike rates later this year. By no means, however, did the statement make any definitive signal about September. The Fed continues to hold true to its promise to make the next move about the data. The era of handholding fades further into memory.
The first paragraph contained nearly all of the changes in the statement. Using the Wall Street Journal's handy-dandy Fed tracker:
In my opinion, this represents a not trivial upgrade of their thoughts on the labor market. Job growth is "solid," unemployment continues to decline, and a much more forceful conclusion on underemployment. No longer has underutilization diminished by a wishy-washy "somewhat." It now conclusively "has" diminished. Hence, it seems like the Fed is closer to declaring victory over one impediment to hiking rates - Fed Chair Janet Yellen's concerns about the high degree of underemployment.
I tend to regard the exclusion of the "energy prices appear to have stabilized" as the elimination of an artifact from the June statement. Energy prices are not in free-fall as the were at the end of last year, and have instead been tracking within a range since the beginning of the year. Hence the Fed can later repeat the inflation forecast as:
"...the Committee expects inflation to rise gradually toward 2 percent over the medium term as the labor market improves further and the transitory effects of earlier declines in energy and import prices dissipate."
Some may interpret it as a more dovish signal in light of the recent declines in oil prices. I am wary of that interpretation.
The only other change to the statement was in the third paragraph:
The addition of the determiner "some" fits nicely with the changes to the first paragraph. The labor market has now shown sufficient improvement such that the bar to a rate hike is actually quite low. Essentially, meeting participants believe the economy is closing in on full employment. And that in and of itself will raise their confidence on the inflation outlook.
There was some early chatter regarding the continued description of the risks to the outlook as "nearly" balanced. This was taken as dovish. Had they said the balance is weighted toward inflation, however, the Fed would have essentially been promising a rate hike in September, and they have been very clear they do not want to make such a promise. So the failure to change the balance of risks should not be that surprising. In that vein, I suspect that when they do hike, they will say something like "with today's action, the risks to the outlook remain balanced" such that they leave no signal regarding the timing or the magnitude of the next move.
Bottom Line: All else equal, the next two labor reports will factor strongly into the Fed's decision in September. A continuation of recent labor trends is likely sufficient to induce them to pull the trigger. Further signs of stronger wage growth would make a September move a certainty.
