Category Archives: US

Fed: This is what it sounds like when doves cry

Too many dark spots for a March hike…

The Federal Reserve is unlikely to hike its policy rate from 0.25-0.50% at its 16th March 2016 meeting and may have little choice but to revise down its expectations to around 3 hikes for 2016 in its accompanying projections. In the 16th December “dot-chart”, the median expectation among the 10 voting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members and 7 non-voting members was for four hikes this year (the weighted average was for a slightly less hawkish 91bp of hikes). Read more

Dovish-light Fed seeks comfort in numbers

Yesterday’s Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) policy meeting provided few surprises, very gently guiding the market towards a possible September rate hike barring any major surprises in the economic data and outlook. This was broadly in line with expectations and my forecast that the FOMC would deliver a dose of boring to a market that had been on tenterhooks (Fed says it best when it says nothing at all, 17 June 2015). Read more

Fed says it best when it says nothing at all

Portfolio managers, analysts and ultimately the market expect the Federal Reserve (Fed) to keep its policy rate of 0-25bp on hold at today’s meeting. Inflationary pressures remain subdued, economic activity has only started to recover after a lackluster Q1, the dollar TWI has appreciated a further 1.4% since the April Fed meeting and there’s the small matter of whether, or arguably when, Greece may default and the fall-out for the eurozone. Read more

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