Markets like to read the meeting minutes of the Federal Reserve’s FOMC even though much, if not most, of the time there’s not much new in them. But investors like to be reassured, and sometimes even if the Fed—being the Fed—fails to repeat some policy, that’s sometimes taken as a change in policy.

The minutes from the most recent meeting, June 9-10, reveal pretty much what the central bank has been saying all along: it’s going to keep rates low until 2022 and it stands ready to use all the tools it has to support the economy, including buying fixed income assets, as it has done.

And if it hadn’t said that, I’d bet the market would take it badly. Sometimes, I think the market is a big baby.

The minutes do show that the Fed looked at ways to design more support for the economy and show some concern about the possibility of additional coronavirus outbreaks, which could in turn hurt the progress made in recent weeks. And here’s the key phrase that the market probably likes: the Fed is not in a hurry to remove support.

We shall see how much support is needed and for how long. Friday, the Labor department reported that the country added 4.8 million jobs in June, much higher than expected. Markets rallied on it, of course.

It will be interesting to see ...

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