The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the price index for personal consumption expenditures, has been below the central bank’s 2% objective for years. The S&P 500 was down 0.81% and technology stocks also closed lower with the Nasdaq Composite down 0.78%.

The Fed considers price stability and full employment as its dual mandate in managing the monetary policy. One concern is that the value of outstanding bonds would fall as higher interest rates from the Fed tend to make newly minted bonds more attractive for buyers. Prices soared on Thursday, posting the biggest daily gains since May of this year.

Congress returns from its August recess next month with a long to-do list, including passing a budget by October. Since the start of the new budget year and raising the nation’s borrowing limit to avoid a default on the national debt. For the previous twelvemonth period the Consumer Price Index reported an increase of 0.2%. However, the significant improvements in the labor market have primarily been fueling the Federal Reserve’s momentum for a planned rate increase.

U.S. stocks fell more than 1% on Wednesday as investors anxious about the effect of China’s slowing growth ahead of the minutes from the latest U.S. Fed meeting that could give clues regarding the timing of a rate increase.

Investor worries were heightened after the release of minutes on Wednesday from the Federal Reserve’s July minutes revealed uncertainty about when to raise US interest rates.

Many Fed officials, including the Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen, has repeated that it’s appropriate to raise the benchmark interest rate this year.

“This would offset the impact of a decline in the long-run neutral real rate of interest by giving the (Fed) more “policy space” to respond to adverse shocks”, Kocherlakota said. The minutes showed policymakers continued to express broad concerns about lagging inflation and the weak world economy even as the U.S. job market improved further. The reason is a host of economic concerns that have spooked investors, including worrying data out of China and its stock market collapse, the recent bailout negotiations in Greece, and an impending rate hike by the Fed.