Minutes of the Federal Reserve's April Meeting: Tail Risks of Interest Rate hikes Appear At the April meeting, the Federal Reserve kept the federal funds rate unchanged at 3.50% -3.75%, which was not surprising in itself. The truly informative part is the discussion on the subsequent policy path in the minutes. The minutes clearly state that most attendees believe that if inflation continues to remain above 2%, further policy tightening may become appropriate. To put it simply, the Federal Reserve is already considering raising interest rates if inflation continues to rise. Cutting interest rates is already far away from us, but raising interest rates is even closer. The main reason for this situation is what I have been saying recently, the Strait of Hormuz. More specifically, many attendees actually hoped to remove the wording in the post meeting statement that hinted at a more likely interest rate cut in the future. Because in their view, it is no longer appropriate to maintain a loose tendency now. Inflation is resurging, energy prices are rising, the Middle East conflict is pushing up supply chain and input costs, and tariffs continue to affect core commodity prices. In this environment, continuing to imply a high probability of interest rate cuts in the next step will lead to premature trading easing in the market.