Old Bao, it's almost time to get off work, and the tricks are just those. This meeting was quite interesting——they said they would pause rate cuts and adopt a hawkish stance, but their actual actions were much more moderate than market expectations. After all, Haskett was there playing the bad cop, so he didn't need to act too tough himself.

What really deserves attention is that the Federal Reserve is almost about to blow up internally. The neutral interest rate forecast hasn't changed on the surface, but the voting results reveal a problem: three members are firmly against rate cuts, while the other seven either prefer to keep the status quo or suggest more cuts. This level of disagreement may set a record in 37 years. The committee has even lost its basic consensus, so don't expect policy to remain easing in the short term.

To put it simply, this FOMC played a balancing act. On the surface, they used a tough stance of "pause rate cuts" to stabilize inflation expectations, while behind the scenes, they quietly loosened liquidity through operations like RMP (Reserve Management Purchase), providing liquidity to the market. They want to please both ends, and it all depends on whether the market buys it.