FOMC Preview: Skip Or Pause

For the first time since March 2022, after tomorrow’s meeting, the Fed is expected to do… nothing.

That’s right: according to most economists and the market, the FOMC is expected to leave rates unchanged at 5.00-5.25% on Wednesday, and while the odds of a rate hike were about 25% ahead of today’s CPI report (and 70% before the latest soggy jobs report which saw the unemployment rate spiking higher) the lack of a surprise in the May CPI data meant that odds of a rate hike tumbled to just 10%, and furthermore the lack of any vocal warning from the Fed’s mouthpiece, the WSJ’s Nikileaks, cemented the case for a “skip/pause” (although many believe that a skip is not only a pause but the de facto beginning of the next easing cycle).