Irrelevance of January Fed Minutes Shows How Fast Monetary Policy Is Moving

Irrelevance of January Fed Minutes Shows How Fast Monetary Policy Is Moving

With minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's January meeting due out Wednesday, crypto traders might be forgiven for dismissing them entirely.

Look how drastically the environment has changed in the past month: The January jobs report showed a much hotter labor market than expected by economists, explaining partly why last week’s Consumer Price Index report came in at a shocking 7.5%, larger than analysts predicted and the fastest pace in four decades.

The fresh data put Wall Street on high alert that conditions were becoming more urgent even than Fed Chair Jerome Powell had telegraphed at the January meeting. Global financial markets reacted by pricing in a much more aggressive rate-hiking cycle by the Federal Reserve.