Fed rate cut at next meeting is a coin flip after shutdown data blackout

Investors are split on whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates again at its next meeting in less than a month, amid uncertainty following the loss of economic data during the government shutdown.

Typically, investors and Fed watchers generally have a sense of what the central bank plans to do with interest rates at its next meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee. But now, there appears to be a growing split between the hawks and the doves on the board about monetary policy, in part, because officials are missing key economic data on inflation and the labor market.

“The U.S. economy is in a fog, and the Fed is choosing to pause, to wait and see, to wait out the fog,” Heather Long, chief economist

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