Getty ImagesReading between the lines of the Federal Reserve’s June 14-15 meeting minutes, at least one thing becomes clear: Policy makers were officially “spooked” by May’s CPI print of 8.6%, according to inflation analyst Omair Sharif. The minutes, released on Wednesday, revealed that officials now see a significant risk that elevated inflation could become “entrenched,” and determined that a 50- to 75-basis-point rate hike at their next meeting would likely be appropriate. What’s more, policy makers warned of the possibility of an “even more restrictive stance” on monetary policy if price pressures persist. That’s an abrupt shift from the Fed’s May 3-4 meeting, when most policy makers were leaning toward a 50-basis-point increment at their next couple of meetings and looking to move policy into a neutral setting. Financial markets appeared to take the Fed’s minutes in stride on Wednesday, with Treasury yields snapping a four-session string of declines and U.S. stocks DJIASPXCOMP ending slightly higher. The initial read by big investors like portfolio manager Bob Miller of BlackRock Inc. is that the minutes provided a recap of the Fed’s June 15 decision to hike by 75 basis points, but failed to provide much meaningful new information. Sharif sees otherwise.In a note, Sharif wrote that the most remarkable aspect of the minutes “is that officials want to get to a restrictive stance as soon as possible so that they’re in a better position to get to even more restrictive territory if Plan A doesn’t work.” “If you read through the minutes, it’s clear that the Fed upgraded the inflation problem to a five-alarm fire that requires it to now move expeditiously past neutral to restrictive,” he wrote.“Fed officials were spooked by the May CPI report,” Sharif said. “If that was a problem, they’re not going to like the June one either, as the headline change seems likely to mirror May’s result.”Reached by phone, he said he sees the annual headline CPI rate for June coming in at 8.8% next week, but that it’s hard to have confidence about when that rate will peak when there’s already been one “head fake”: March’s CPI data, released in April, gave many reason to hope that inflation would reverse, but was instead followed by two more 8%-plus readings.Wednesday’s minutes don’t suggest that Fed officials are trying to leave the door open to a 100-basis-point hike at some point, Sharif said — rather they’re looking at the likelihood of having to just continue moving up the fed funds rate target from its current level of 1.5% to 1.75%.
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