The latest Federal Reserve rate decision will be announced on Wednesday 7th May at 19:00BST/14:00EDT, with Chair Powellʼs press conference starting 30 minutes later. We will not get an updated Summary of Economic Projections (SEPs) at this confab and will have to wait until the June meeting for updated forecasts.
The central bank is widely expected to keep rates unchanged at 4.25- 4.50% after the stronger-than-expected April jobs report. In other words, the Fed will do exactly nothing even as the PBOC finally cuts rates and unleashes the liquidity floodgates to give Beijing ammo for the trade war negotiations with the US starting later this week.
But back to the Fed doing nothing: money markets currently assign just a 2% probability of a 25bps reduction at the meeting, with 72bps of easing priced through year-end.
