Minutes Show Fed Leaders Delayed Rate Hike Over Global Risks

Federal Reserve officials put off an interest-rate increase in September because of growing risks, mainly from China, to their outlook for economic growth and inflation even as they continued to say they were on track to raise the target later this year.

Policy makers “agreed that developments over the inter-meeting period had not materially altered the committee’s economic outlook,” according to minutes of the Sept. 16-17 session of the Federal Open Market Committee, released Thursday in Washington. Nonetheless, “the committee decided that it was prudent to wait for additional information confirming that the economic outlook had not deteriorated.”