The meeting was held on January 31 and February 1, and the first minutes of the meeting were published on Wednesday, February 22.
Although US inflation shows early signs of slowing, it remains persistently high overall.
“Participants in the meetings noted that it is necessary to maintain a restrictive policy until the data instills confidence that inflation is coming down sustainably to the level of two percent, which will probably take some time,” the meeting minutes showed.
Goldman Sachs expects the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates three more times this year by a quarter of a percentage point each after mid-February data pointed to persistent inflation and a resilient labor market.
Fall of shares caused by forecasts of a further increase in interest rates
Wall Street recorded its biggest daily drop in stock values. The reason for this is the expectations of investors according to which the US central bank will continue to raise interest rates, considering that the economy is resistant to the growth of the price of money.
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones index fell by 2.06 percent, to 33,129 points, while the S&P 500 is lower by two percent, or at the level of 3,997 points, and the Nasdaq index by 2.5 percent, to 11,492 points.
The decline in the index followed the announcement that, according to S&P Global, business activity in the United States unexpectedly increased in February.
The activity index jumped from 46.8 points, which was a month earlier, to 50.2 points.
That, as well as a series of recently published macroeconomic data, shows that the economy is very resistant to an aggressive increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve (Fed).
As the economy continues to grow solidly, as does the labor market, inflationary pressures could remain heightened for longer than the market expected.
