The Fed faces a finely balanced set of considerations over whether to cut by 25 or 50 basis points at its meeting that begins today. The case for 50 comes down to what Fed officials call risk management but what might be thought of as regret minimization. Per former Dallas Fed President Rob Kaplan, if you cut 50 here and you think the Fed will need to cut again after that, you are unlikely to regret such a cut even if the economy chugs along between now and your next meeting. But if you cut 25 and things worsen a lot in the coming weeks, you'll feel bigger regret as you'll be behind the curve. The case for 25 boils down to some combination of 1) process issues (i.e., 50 will signal something more urgent; there's an election soon; communications were not explicit enough about 50 in the run-up to this meeting), 2) a view that the economy is doing just fine and will continue to do so with more gradual reductions, and 3) that because financial conditions are easy (in part because markets expect the Fed to deliver a string of cuts), igniting risk assets could make it harder to finish the inflation fight. There is a gift link to the full article here: wsj.com/economy/central-bank…

Powell used the words “proceed carefully” six times during Wednesday’s news conference, a sign of heightened caution about lifting rates “He didn’t sound to me like he was itching to hike again,” said Michael Feroli, chief economist at JPMorgan Chase wsj.com/economy/central-bank…