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Powell says December cut in question amid Fed divides

The Fed cut interest rates as expected, another reduction in December is "far from" a "forgone conclusion," the chair said.

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The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the panel of Fed officials in charge of monetary policy, reduced its baseline interest rate to a range of 3.75 to 4 percent, cutting it by 0.25 percentage points.

Officials voted 10 to 2 in favor of the rate cut, with Fed board member Stephen Miran instead supporting a larger 0.5 percentage point cut, and Kansas City Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Schmid supporting no move at all.

The FOMC had to rely on a patchwork of private-sector data, a delayed consumer price index (CPI) and the Fed’s regular surveys of businesses and nonprofits for the late

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