Previewing Next Week’s FOMC Statement

Ok so Goldman has a preview (or three) out re: next week’s Fed meeting which is of course expected to yield another rate hike.

I’ve got a new piece on increasingly negative cross currency bases and why a worsening USD shortage (triggered by money market reform and exacerbated by Trump-inspired protectionist rhetoric) may ultimately curtail the Fed’s ability to hike. Hopefully SA will push it out later this evening. If it’s not out by tomorrow morning I’ll go ahead and post it here. In the meantime I wanted to bring you Goldman’s best guess at what the December statement will look like. Here’s the Squid’s official preview:

And a bit of color:

Low unemployment and fiscal easing may ultimately warrant a faster pace of rate hikes by the FOMC. However, we think most officials will be reluctant to bake that into their projections at this time–the outlook for fiscal policy is still highly uncertain, and revising up the dots risks sending an overly hawkish message. Fed officials have emphasized the need for patience in recent comments. For example, President Evans said: “I think it’s still early to have a good idea of what fiscal policies and other events are going to mean for the outlook. So we’ll be thinking that one through. I think we’re going to have to be patient a little bit in thinking about what the actual sources of stimulus are going to be.” President Dudley sounded disinclined to revise up his growth forecasts: “I think for me it’s a little premature, because I don’t know what it is, when it is, or how much it is.”

Right. We don’t “know what it is, when it is, or how much it is.” Hmmm.