The market’s focus early this week will be on the Tue/Wed FOMC meeting. After the meeting concludes on Wednesday, Fed Chair Powell will hold his usual press conference, and the FOMC will also release its updated macroeconomic forecasts and its updated dot-plot forecast for the federal funds rate.
The markets are discounting virtually no chance that the FOMC at this week’s meeting will raise the federal funds rate from its current range of 5.25-5.50%. The FOMC has already raised its funds rate target sharply by 5.25 percentage points in just the past 1-1/2 years, which is the sharpest rate hike since the Fed pushed the funds rate into double-digits during 1978-82 when then-Chair Volcker was forced to declare an all-out war on inflation.
