A 9–3 hold, with all three dissents for a hike

The FOMC held the target range at 3.50–3.75% on July 29, but the unanimity of June lasted exactly one meeting. Three members dissented, and all three went in the same direction. Beth Hammack, Neel Kashkari, and Lorie Logan each preferred a quarter-point increase. After April’s four-way scatter and June’s 12–0, the committee has found its disagreement again, and this time it points up.

The statement itself barely moved. It still described activity as “expanding at a solid pace” and inflation as “elevated relative to the Committee’s 2 percent goal, in part reflecting supply shocks.” What changed is the arithmetic behind it. The dissenters looked at 3.5% headline inflation and a cooling labor market and still concluded that inflation expectations, more than growth, were the risk worth voting against.

Three meetings, three committees

When every dissent points the same way, it stops being noise and becomes a signal about where the committee’s pain threshold sits.

Positioning into September

September 15–16 brings the next decision and a fresh set of projections. A hawkish bloc of three does not make a hike likely. It does make near-term cuts hard, and it widens the tail in both directions. For deposit pricing, that argues for holding the line. For ALCO, it argues for keeping a genuine hike scenario alive even as the headline data improves.