Fed minutes indicate officials favored further aggressive rate hikes

Federal Reserve officials agreed at their June policy meeting that they would have to increase the speed and size of their interest-rate hikes to cool the economy and curb high inflation, according to minutes of the meeting released Wednesday and reported on by The Wall Street Journal.

"Participants concurred that the economic outlook warranted moving to a restrictive stance of policy," the minutes said. A "restrictive stance" refers to rates high enough to slow economic growth.

Fed officials made a rare 0.75 percentage point increase to their benchmark short-term interest rate, the biggest hike since 1994. Since the meeting, some of the central bank's leaders have suggested they would support another such hike at their July meeting. The aggressive Fed position has stoked concerns of a possible recession.

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