new york april 12 reuters  several federal reserve officials at the us central banks policy meeting last month considered pausing interest rate increases until it was clear the failure of two regional banks would not cause wider financial stress but even they ultimately concluded high inflation remained the priority however those officials along with others agreed that actions taken by us policymakers and the fed had helped calm conditions in the banking sector and lessen the nearterm risks to economic activity and inflation according to the minutes federal open market committees march 2122 meeting released on wednesday they supported a quarterpercentagepoint rate increase despite the new uncertainty around the financial sector story read more stocks sp 500 spx reversed slight gain and was off 636 points or 015 bonds the us treasury 10year yield slipped and was last at 3434 the yield on the 2year note slipped to 3966 forex the dollar index dxy was little changed down 0617 “that is exactly what we knew we knew as soon as the banking crisis hit that 50 basis point hike was off the table i didn’t see anything new that was so significant in this fomc report that is going to change my mind about anything they are going 25 and then they are going to pause and i don’t think they are going to be any rate cuts this year i don’t care what fed funds futures say i don’t see how the fed could possibly cut when inflation is still at the very least 3 above where their target is so i just don’t see how they could possibly justify that they have to cut rates because things are so bad it’s going to have bad like really bad for them to cut i’m not swayed by the latest fomc minutes at all” the minutes sound a little bit more on the dovish side it seems to indicate theyre more inclined to pause sooner than before i would guess at this point that the two options are 25 basis points in may or none the inflation data plus banking industry issues probably take 50 bps off the table completely the headline inflation rate is below the core rate which it hasnt been for a long time but the inflation story is still moving in the right direction still the fed will be worried about their messaging as the headline number is still high there hasnt been much of a reaction from the bond or stock market cpi data was relatively benign the minutes are being viewed as relatively benign its probably going to be rangebound trading for a little longer until we get some major news