The Fed funds market is pricing in a 10% chance of a 50 basis point cut

  • Now the Fed is in the blackout
Fed blackout

The one thing that doesn't make sense to me about the Fed is the calendar.

To my way of thinking, you want to make your decision-making and communication as systematic as possible. Yet the Fed has this funky calendar where they have different sets of information at each meeting.

Wouldn't it be better to have a system where they get non-farm payrolls and CPI then a week to communicate it and then have the meeting?

This week illustrates the problem as the non-farm payrolls report came right before the Fed blackout. So now we're in a position where we have to wait for some kind of leak or guess what the Fed will do after CPI. It's a mess.

Right now market pricing is 10% for 50 bps but what if we get a soft CPI report? Or some other negative economic news?

Do we really want to go into the FOMC priced at a one-in-four chance of a 50 bps cut? That's just going to create the kind of volatility that the Fed usually aims to avoid.

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