Federal Reserve officials are split into two camps, according to Wall Street Journal’s Jon Hilsenrath, those who believed that risks to the economy were materializing and those who wanted to wait and see. Either way, The Fed is confused and their 4-hikes in 2016 meme is disappearing fast.

As The Wall Street Journal reports,

Federal Reserve officials struggled with uncertainty about the outlook for inflation and growth at their January policy meeting —and whether rising risks to the economy might alter their plans to raise short-term interest rates.

Declining stock and oil prices, doubts about China, indications of declining inflation expectations in markets and other factors left officials split in two camps—those who believed that risks to the economy were materializing and those who wanted to wait and see.

“Participants judged that the overall implication of these developments for the outlook for domestic economic activity was unclear, but they agreed that uncertainty had increased, and many saw these developments as increasing the downside risks to the outlook,” the Fed said in minutes of the Jan. 26-27 policy meeting, which were released Wednesday with their regular three-week lag.

This seems to confirm what we already noted as the best summary of this farce…

FOMC Minutes: The Fed didn’t provide an economic assessment in January because they’re as puzzled as all of you.

— Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) February 17, 2016