FOMC preview
Preview of March 2024 FOMC Meeting
March 20, 2024
The thrust of Chairman Powell’s press conference after the last FOMC meeting was that monetary officials are happy with the U.S. economic performance — a combination of solid growth, very low unemployment, and a faster-than-imagined drop of inflation — but that they are waiting for more evidence of such satisfactory trends before beginning to reduce […] More
January 2024 FOMC Preview
January 31, 2024
The Fed policy announcement and subsequent press conference are scheduled for 14:00 EST and 14:30 EST. Macro-economic forecasts have not been updated for this meeting, and policy settings are expected to be left unchanged. So the focus will be on the statement’s first paragraph that defines U.S. growth and price trends and on what Chairman […] More
Waiting for the Eighth and Final FOMC Meeting of 2023
December 12, 2023
The federal funds rate target was last increased in July, and a likely announcement tomorrow to leave the rate unchanged at 5.25/5.50% will extend past a half year the cresting point. In more monetary policy cycles than not, the interval between a final rate increase and the first cut of an ensuing cycle of rate […] More
FOMC Preview
November 1, 2023
This week’s review of U.S. monetary policy is the seventh of eight scheduled in 2023. The rhetoric of policymakers remains hawkish even as the size and automaticity of rate hikes has diminished. Rate increase were engineered five times earlier this year; the meetings in June and September being the times that hikes did not occur. […] More
FOMC Preview
September 20, 2023
Today’s is the sixth of eight scheduled policy meetings in 2023. After ten straight interest rate hikes beginning in March 2022, the Federal Open Market Committee left the federal funds target unchanged at this year’s June meeting but implemented an 11th increase at the subsequent meeting eight weeks ago. Compared to the pandemic low range […] More
FOMC Preview
July 26, 2023
The Federal Reserve did not begin raising its interest rate target, which had been at 0.0-0.25%, until March 2022. A 25-basis point hike then was followed by a 50-bp increase in May, four successive 75-bp hikes in June, July, September and November, then three straight 50-bp moves in December, January and March, and a pair […] More
FOMC Preview
June 14, 2023
The Fed seems likely to pause the cycle of interest rate hikes, wherein the federal funds range target has climbed five percentage points (ie, 500 basis points) since mid-March 2022, with a rate hike announced at every scheduled policy review in that period but not at all on an emergency intra-meeting basis. The concurrent 5.4% […] More
FOMC Preview
May 3, 2023
Striking the appropriate stance of U.S. monetary policy at this particular juncture is a very complicated undertaking. The FOMC statement will be followed by Chairman Powell’s press conference beginning 30 minutes later at 18:30 GMT. The full effect of extensive policy tightening already undertaken has not been felt, and inflation has fallen significantly below last […] More
FOMC Preview
March 22, 2023
Since the February 1 FOMC rate hike of 25 basis points, the dollar has advanced 2.7% against the yen and 1.8% versus the euro. The 10-year Treasury yield is now 18 basis points more elevated than then. The DOW and price of WTI oil have dropped by 4.6% and 8.6%, and the price of bitcoin […] More
FOMC Preview
February 1, 2023
Beginning last March, the federal funds rate target was increased at the last seven scheduled FOMC meetings in 2022 by a total 425 basis points to a range of 4.25-4.50%. Forward guidance has lately been framed around three questions: how much to lift at each instance — how high does the rate need to be […] More
