Michael Gapin

Thanks for having me on.

Well, as you noted, the decision to stay on hold was widely expected.

That was no surprise.

And so I think what markets and I was looking for really was...

Is the Fed, have they paused or are they on pause, right?

In other words, was this a hawkish hold, meaning they want to signal that they will be on hold for a long time.

They don't anticipate adjusting the policy rate for a long time.

Or was it, hey, things look a little bit better,

But we think as inflation comes down, we might ease later.

Did they maintain an easing bias?

So that was really the key, I think, for all of us in markets and what I was looking for.

Was it a hawkish hold or a dovish hold?

And I think we did get the latter.

So the Fed certainly felt like the economy has gotten better.

There are some signs that the labor market has stabilized.

There doesn't appear to be a lot of upside risk to inflation.

So given that they had already moved 75 basis points or cut three times, I think they felt like it was time to stop, look around and see how the economy evolved.

Well, I think the way that I would describe it is coming into the second half of last year, the Fed was cutting rates on concerns about the labor market.

The Fed felt there were downside risks to employment, so they were labor market based cuts.

But if they've upgraded the outlook, they say activity is solid.