FxWirePro: What to watch in FOMC meet ahead?

Today, the U.S. Federal Reserve will announce its monetary policy decision at 19:00 GMT. Recently, the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman has directly hinted at a pause and the central bank signaled just two rate hikes for 2019. However, the central bank chief Jerome Powell also pointed to the fact that from now on, the central bank would be more dependent on incoming data than fixed forward guidance.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has hiked rates by 25 basis points four times last year.

The focus will be on the followings –

• Policy decision –Most of the analysts and economists expect the Fed to maintain the Federal Funds Rate unchanged at 2.25-2.50 bps. The market is pricing a 97 percent chance of no rate hike at today’s meeting.
   
• FED’s monetary policy statement – The market would be looking for a clue to future rate hikes by assessing the tone of the statement. In the absence of projection materials and with no press conference scheduled that market would be looking closely at the statement to assess the bias.

The financial market is pretty convinced that the U.S. Federal Reserve would not increase in the rate at today’s meeting. But, more importantly, the market is not even pricing just one hike. The only rate hike is currently priced in December and that with just 23 percent probability.  

The dollar index is currently trading at 95.96, up 0.15 percent so far today.