This week’s Federal Reserve meeting offers little suspense and probably not much action, even as massive changes loom over the central bank’s longer-term direction.
Judging by market expectations and policymakers’ comments, there’s virtually no chance the Fed will change its benchmark interest rate when the meeting ends Wednesday.
Despite a recent spate of disagreements among Federal Open Market Committee members about the longer-term trajectory of monetary policy, the near-term stance likely will be one of patience as a series of cuts made last year work their way through the economy.
“Overall, the Fed just wants to stand pat. They feel they’ve got time to wait and see,” former Fed Vice Chair Roger Ferguson said in a CNBC interview Monday. “This feels like a wait-and-see meeting, and we should all be listening to see if there’s any hint or a bias towards a future action.”
Indications of where the FOMC heads from here would come from the post-meeting policy statement as well as Chair Jerome Powell’s news conference afterward. Markets currently expect the Fed to cut once or twice this year — most likely in June and December, according to futures market pricing gauged by the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
