1. Interest rate path clearly shifts to easing: Interest rate hikes are no longer a fundamental assumption of policy, and the market generally expects the policy rate to remain unchanged or to initiate cuts. The current rate is at the high end of the neutral range, consistent with the 3.6% median expectation for 2025 in the dot plot.
2. Inflation shows 'tariff-driven' characteristics: Affected by tariff policies, current inflation remains high and exhibits an 'invisible increase' trend, with companies gradually passing tariff costs onto consumers; if tariff factors are excluded, core inflation is close to the 2% policy target.
3. Employment market shows mild cooling: The unemployment rate slightly rose to 4.4%, and non-farm employment growth has significantly slowed (averaging only 35,000 over the past three months). AI is not the main reason for employment weakness, and the labor market is in a state of 'fragile balance'.
4. Debt purchasing operations focus on liquidity management: to alleviate pressure in the money market, a high level of government bond purchases will be maintained in the coming months (market expectations are up to $45 billion on average per month), and will gradually be reduced as liquidity improves, representing a technical reserve management operation.
5. The structural contradictions in the real estate market are difficult to resolve: long-term housing construction shortages compounded by high 30-year mortgage rates, with rents in core cities rising 9.1% year-on-year, and a mere 25 basis points cut in interest rates offers limited improvement in housing affordability.
6. Policy independence and wait-and-see posture: unaffected by the president's nomination process, no planning for individual term arrangements, refusal to evaluate relevant Supreme Court cases; monetary policy enters a 'data-dependent' wait-and-see period, with decisions needing to balance inflation resilience and economic growth concerns.
