The Federal Reserve this week released the minutes of the July meeting of its Open Market Committee, providing more detail and color regarding the central bank’s deliberations on shrinking its enormous holdings of agency MBS and the future path and timing of interest rate adjustments. FOMC members started their portfolio deliberations by discussing the appropriate time to start reducing the Fed’s securities holdings, a plan that had been formally announced in June. “Participants generally agreed that, in light of their current assessment of economic conditions and the outlook, it was appropriate to signal that implementation of the program likely would begin relatively soon, absent significant adverse developments in the economy or in financial markets,” according to the minutes. Many members of the committee noted...