Nick Timiraos' piece was in Tuesday morning's Wall Street Journal, so this is not fresh news. And its not going to surprise anyone either.
In brief:
- Fed officials will hold their benchmark federal-funds rate steady
- Firmer-than-anticipated inflation in the first three months of the year has likely postponed rate cuts for the foreseeable future.
- officials are likely to emphasize that they are prepared to hold rates steady ... for longer than they previously anticipated
- With no new economic projections at this meeting and minimal changes expected to the Fed’s policy statement, Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference will be the main event
At the press conference:
Powell is likely to repeat a message he delivered two weeks ago, when he said recent data had “clearly not given us greater confidence” that inflation would continue declining to 2% “and instead indicate that it’s likely to take longer than expected to achieve that.”
The focus at this meeting will be how Powell characterizes the interest-rate outlook.
The Journal is gated but here is the link if you can access it:
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)'s policy decision will be released on Wednesday May 1 at 2 pm US EDT (1800 GMT) with Fed Chair Jerome Powell following up with his press conference at 2:30 pm (1830 GMT).
Earlier previews:
