"Federal Reserve mouthpiece": Policy turning points are emerging, and discussions within the Federal Reserve about resuming rate hikes have already begun.

Mars Finance News reports, citing The Wall Street Journal, that “Fed whisperer” Nick Timiraos wrote that three regional Federal Reserve presidents—including Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari—oppose continuing to use the wording “the next step is more likely to cut rates” in this week’s policy meeting. They believe the next rate adjustment could be either a hike or a cut.

The outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the committee is gradually shifting from a “cutting rates” inclination to a “neutral stance,” and noted that if rate hikes are needed in the future, the Fed will first move to a neutral stance before releasing signals of a rate increase.

Nick Timiraos’s analysis suggests that the Fed’s internal discussions about the path of interest rates have undergone a clear shift. The focus is no longer mainly on when to restart rate cuts, but instead on under what conditions it might become necessary to raise rates again. Since the Fed began issuing policy statements in 1994, disagreements over how to describe the direction of policy (rather than actual changes in interest rates) have been rare.