Weekly Market Commentary 08/19/2016

The week’s batch of data neither moved the Fed closer to nor further away from raising rates at its September policy meeting. That, in turn, echoes the mixed sentiment of policymakers expressed at the July 26-27 meeting, for which the minutes were also released this week. As to be expected from the known biases of various Fed officials, the opinions of both hawks and doves were richly debated at the meeting. The doves, not surprisingly, see little urgency for a rate increase, given the low level of inflation and inflation expectations, the still uncertain global headwinds following Brexit and the slack that persists in the labor and particularly the product markets.