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Here come the Fed Minutes ...

Oct 8, 2015, 23:07 IST

A Federal Open Market Committee meeting in the 1970s.Flickr / Federal Reserve

At 2:00 p.m. ET, the Federal Reserve will publish the minutes of its September 16-17 meeting.

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The Fed decided not to raise interest rates for the first time in nine years, although some economists were convinced that the timing was right.

In its statement, the FOMC said again it would like to see further improvement in the labor market and more evidence that inflation is moving towards its 2% target.

The Fed also flagged concerns about China's economic slowdown, and how this may impact US economic activity and put downward pressure on inflation.

Economists expect that these minutes will shed some light on why the Fed made its decision, and just how concerned officials were about the market volatility that ensued a month before the FOMC met.

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On the labor market, however, the minutes may be out of date. On Friday, the September jobs report showed a weaker-than-expected gain in nonfarm payrolls, and a big downward revision for August. It also showed that the labor force participation rate fell further to a 38-year low.

And so, a lot has changed since the Fed met, although markets will still be parsing the minutes to get the Fed's assessment of how much slack remains in the labor market.

We'll have complete coverage of the minutes and the market reaction at the top of the hour.

NOW WATCH: Fed's Bullard gave us a great baseball analogy to explain what the Fed is doing wrong

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