What to Expect From the First FOMC Meeting of 2023

“Chair Powell and the Fed sent an unambiguously hawkish higher-for-longer message at today’s FOMC meeting,” wrote Citigroup economist Andrew Hollenhorst. “The Fed is projecting inflation to steadily cool, while the labor market remains historically tight. But, in our view, a sustained imbalance in the labor market is more likely to keep inflation ‘stuck’ above target.” “I wouldn’t attribute huge importance to one hike in macroeconomic terms,” said Powell.

Since 2021 the primary focus has been on bringing down surging inflation, while the job market has generally held up well. Now, with Consumer Price Index inflation running at a 3.7% headline annual rate for August 2023 and the jobs market showing some early signs of softness what is z cash on August data, there’s more of a balance between the Fed’s two main objectives. The Committee announces its decisions at its eight meetings per year. It explains its actions by commenting on how well the economy is performing, especially inflation and unemployment.

• The FOMC has been raising interest rates since March of last year in an attempt to slow down the economy and ease inflation.
• The minutes of regularly scheduled meetings are released three weeks after the date of the policy decision.
• “Nonetheless, we need to get to a place where we’re confident that we have a stance that will bring inflation down to 2% over time.”
• Its articles, interactive tools and other content are provided to you for free, as self-help tools and for informational purposes only.

“Nonetheless, we need to get to a place where we’re confident that we have a stance that will bring inflation down to 2% over time.” “It’s the strikes, it’s the government shutdown, resumption of student Best forex trading app loan payments, higher long-term rates, oil price shock,” Powell said. “There are a lot of things that you can look at. So, what we try to do is assess all of them and handicap all of them.”

Is inflation going down from the Fed’s interest rate hikes?

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is the main policy making body of the Fed. The FOMC sets the federal funds target rate and makes other monetary policy decisions for the Fed. The FOMC meets eight times a year to vote on interest rates and policy priorities. Markets had fully priced in no move at this meeting, which kept the fed funds rate in a targeted range between 5.25%-5.5%, the highest in some 22 years. The rate fixes what banks charge each other for overnight lending but also spills over into many forms of consumer debt. Then aside from policy moves, the next big question for the Fed and markets is what success in taming inflation looks like.

“Most forecasters are expecting a recession sometime in the next year. That could be caused by a variety of factors, not just by Federal Reserve policy,” Gibson says. NerdWallet, Inc. is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor. Its articles, interactive tools and other content are provided to you for free, as self-help tools and for informational purposes only.

A lot is riding on the outcome of the FOMC meeting that concludes Wednesday. The degree to which the Fed raises interest rates has important implications for the stock market, inflation and the odds of a recession this year. Regardless of what the Fed does, Cheng and other advisors say that investing consistently, managing debt carefully and moving savings into high-yield accounts can help people get ahead of rising rates. The S&P 500 traded up about 2.5% in the week before the January-February FOMC meeting. The market is expecting an increase of 25 basis points, or 0.25 percentage points, in the Fed’s target rate, Gibson says. Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network, says slowing jobs growth is actually good news for inflation.

But he said among the many unknowns are the effect on America’s economic output, hiring and its impact on inflation. People without any meaningful savings who spend all their income on the basics of life (like clothing, food, transportation and heating) are in “trouble right away” if prices go up by 5%, said Powell. “At the same time, they are spending money and their behavior is not what you would expect from the surveys,” Powell said. “I think a lot of it is — just people hate inflation,” he said, “and that causes people to say the economy is terrible.” Even though the Federal Reserve didn’t hike its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, it didn’t lower it either. Get pro perspectives from Jim Iuorio, Managing Director, TJM Institutional Services, on trading current market events with Micro Treasury Yield futures.

Currently investors see a 47% chance the central bank will raise rates by at least another quarter of a percentage point at the November FOMC meeting. MNI’s Oil and Gas service offers real-time, actionable intelligence and insight on global oil and gas markets, delivered in concise bullet point format, either via the MNI website, Bloomberg or the ICE platform. It is complemented by our email service, which provides weekly analysis of the energy sector, market roundups ahead of each regional trading session, as well as comprehensive previews of all OPEC meetings. Our Oil and Gas team includes former energy traders, industry experts, political risk analysts and macroeconomists, with full analyst interaction available.

The U.S. labor market has remained tight, but it has shown signs of softening in recent months. The Labor Department reported the U.S. economy added 187,000 jobs in August, exceeding economist expectations of 170,000 new jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the consumer price index — a key inflation gauge — rose 6.5% year over year in December 2022. That’s lower than the 9.1% year-over-year increase the bureau recorded in June 2022, although it’s well above the Fed’s 2% target.

The remaining Federal Reserve decisions on interest rates for 2023 will be announced on September 20, November 1 and December 13. Each meeting will be followed by a press conference from Fed Chair Jerome Powell 30 minutes after the rate announcement. Consumers, who make up about two-thirds of all economic activity, have been resilient, spending even as savings have diminished and credit card debt has passed the $1 trillion mark for the first time.

Publication Of Meeting Minutes

It’s likely rates will peak somewhere in the 5% to 6% range, but projections may help clarify exactly where. The first is to wait longer for their restrictive policy to have an impact. The second is to raise rates further in the hope of bringing prices down faster. Powell reiterated the Fed’s 2% inflation target during his post-policy meeting press conference. Within the dates above, the announcements in March, June, September and December may be considered more insightful by markets. This is because at these meetings the Fed will provide a summary of its economic projections.

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The economy is growing stronger than the Fed thought and no one—not even Powell—knows what they will do in the 4th quarter,” Bolvin says. Earlier this month, the Labor Department reported that its consumer price index (CPI) rose 3.7% year-over-year in August, up from a 3.2% gain in July but still well below a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022. Even so, projections released by the FOMC signal one more rate hike this year. But when the Fed increases interest rates, it risks shrinking the economy too much and causing a recession — which is a possibility in today’s fragile economic climate. The investing information provided on this page is for educational purposes only.

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News & World Report, Seeking Alpha, InvestorPlace.com and The Motley Fool. Mr. Duggan is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and resides in Biloxi, Mississippi. In late August, the Commerce Department reported the core PCE price index was up 4.2% year-over-year in July, a slight increase from the 4.1% gain reported in June. The core PCE inflation number excludes volatile energy and food prices. Investors see a 93% chance the Fed will maintain interest rates at their current levels in September and only a 7% chance it will raise rates by a quarter of a percentage point, according to CME Group.

Fed members raised their 2023 U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection from 1% to 2.1%. The central bank also raised its 2024 GDP growth projection from 1.1% to 1.5%. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in his post-meeting news conference on Wednesday that the FOMC is willing to raise rates further if necessary and will not cut rates until members are confident inflation is falling sustainably.

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Add a United Auto Workers strike, oil prices nearing $100 a barrel, gas prices hitting $4 in 11 states and the possibility of a government shutdown … “It is for those people as much as anybody that we need to restore price stability. We want to do it as quickly as possible,” he said. “Obviously we would like the current trend to continue, which is that we are making progress without seeing the kind of increase in unemployment that we have seen in past hikes.” The latest University of Michigan consumer sentiment index showed Americans are becoming more anxious about the US economic outlook. The index hit an all-time low in June 2022, the same month that inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, peaked at 9.1%. US stocks closed lower on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve announced it would keep interest rates steady but suggested that more hikes were on the horizon and that rates may remain higher for longer than previously expected.

In late August, the Commerce Department reported the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index was up 4.2% year-over-year in July, up from a 4.1% gain in June but down from a 2022 peak of 5.3%. Core PCE is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure, and its long-term target for core PCE inflation is forex trading for beginners just 2%. The catch, however, is that stock markets don’t like declines in overall economic activity — so they’re sensitive to interest rate increases. “By raising interest rates, the Fed is aiming to curtail borrowing by businesses and consumers — thereby causing a decline in overall economic activity,” Gibson says.

“We still believe in a higher for longer narrative given current levels of employment and certain areas of the economy reaccelerating.” After all, who can forget that rising interest rates sparked turmoil in the banking sector? Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed, Credit Suisse (CS) was forced into the arms of competitor UBS (UBS)  and First Republic Bank had to be rescued by JPMorgan Chase (JPM). He was also a former senior Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush. He has been a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a partner at the Carlyle Group from 1997 to 2005. President Trump nominated him to replace Janet Yellen as the Fed chair.