Federal Reserve's third-in-command: Every meeting is a potentially substantive meeting for action, and the independence of the Federal Reserve is extremely valuable

The third-ranking official of the Federal Reserve, Williams, stated that each meeting is "real-time effective," implying policy flexibility. Although he did not explicitly support raising or lowering interest rates, he mentioned that the current interest rate level is "moderately tight." The unemployment rate is low, wage growth aligns with a robust labor market performance, and inflation is declining slowly. Williams emphasized the importance of the Federal Reserve's independence and did not comment specifically on the incident of Trump firing board member Lisa Cook. Investors are betting that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in September