The FOMC rate decision will be announced Wednesday, March 16 at 2 PM ET.
- 1800 GMT
Fed's Powell press conference will follow shortly after at 2:30 PM ET
- 1830 GMT
Earlier previews:
- regardless of the move, it is hard to see how central banks can really fix what is happening in the world right now
- What to expect from the FOMC on Wednesday - BofA
- Key events and releases next week highlighted by the FOMC rate decision
This snippet via Scotia, saying There remain three major forms of uncertainty into the meeting:
1. The Dots: ... The median projections only began to anticipate rate hikes years down the road starting in December 2020 and have since been progressively brought forward and raised... Markets will pay keen attention to how much higher they go and how much sooner. The common expectation is that the FOMC will tread carefully and maybe add a couple more hikes to this year, but the risk could very well slant toward both higher and earlier than previously anticipated.
2. Projections: ... For some time now there have been more and more FOMC members getting increasingly worried about upside risk to inflation ... and they are likely to further translate such concerns into a material upgrade of inflation forecasts at this meeting. Projections regarding how high and for how long on inflation plus how long and how durably they foresee lower unemployment will help to inform the committee’s stance.
3. Press conference: Chair Powell has freer rein to guide the direction of risks on important matters such as pace and level of rate hikes over time, as well as revealing further colour on the committee’s discussions around roll-off caps that would inform expectations for how quickly they may shrink the SOMA portfolio of Treasury and MBS holdings. To date he has said that the nature of the pandemic versus the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis merits shrinking the balance sheet more rapidly. Watch for reference to how rapidly
