Kashkari and Hammack dissented. Logan dissented. Three people voted against not doing something. This counts as financial news.
The Fed held rates steady and three officials threw a fit about it. They wanted to hike rates right now because inflation apparently requires immediate action. Not tomorrow's action. Not next month's action. Today's action. The kind of urgency you'd expect from a house fire, except applied to a number that already happened and can't be changed.
Retail traders will read this headline and think it means something about their positions. It does not. The Fed could hike rates fifty basis points tomorrow and Dave from Milwaukee would still lose money on his 0DTE calls because he bought them at 3:57 PM based on a TikTok he half-watched while his wife asked him about dinner plans.
Here's what actually happened: the majority voted to hold rates. Kashkari, Hammack, and Logan voted to hike. The majority won because that's how voting works. Rates stayed put. The dissenters get their names in articles like this one. Everyone pretends the dissent matters for price action.
The chart doesn't care about dissenting votes. The chart doesn't read FOMC minutes. The chart doesn't know Lorie Logan exists. Support and resistance formed millions of years before the Federal Reserve was founded and will continue forming long after it's dissolved. But sure, pivot your entire strategy because three people raised their hands at a meeting.
Kashkari will dissent again at the next meeting. Or he won't. The rate will go up eventually. Or it won't. Your technical levels will either hold or break regardless of how many Fed presidents stamp their feet about inflation timing.
Three officials wanted action now. They got outvoted. The headline treated this like breaking news instead of what it actually was: a footnote that changes nothing about where price goes next.
Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash
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