Wednesdays are often unremarkable for investors, but the one coming up is an outlier. After all, it’ll be the first monthly meeting of the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) Open Market Committee (FOMC) presided over by new Fed chair Kevin Warsh.
All FOMC meetings matter, particularly to investors, but this one will be especially crucial. Here’s why.
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Welcome, Mr. Warsh
Warsh’s first FOMC meeting is his opportunity to set the tone of his leadership. Wise investors will parse his remarks for indications of whether he’ll tend to be hawkish on inflation — meaning he favors interest rate hikes to cool or mitigate it — or be more of a dove, inclined to let the economy take its course.
Worries about inflation, always a concern, are rising. The Iran war led directly to a spike in crude oil prices. That continues to resonate throughout the global economy, as crude is foundational in the processing of key products like gasoline and fertilizer.
Warsh faces pressure from both political and business figures to keep interest rates low. This, theoretically, will keep the U.S. economy humming; however, the nation’s consumers are feeling the pain of those rising prices. And without the “brake” of higher interest rates, they might not get relief. Either stance, then, carries risks for Warsh.
Both the Fed and the FOMC are powerful entities that can make or break economies. Eyes will be on Warsh to see simply how he manages such a large organization and interacts with a committee whose members can be contentious.
Interested in interest (rates)
It almost goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway — FOMC meetings are chiefly monitored for action (or lack thereof) on interest rates. Even a slight change will ripple through the world economy almost immediately.
If rates are unchanged, any utterance from Warsh, specifically, and from FOMC members generally, will be scrutinized for clues about the Fed’s future direction.
So this is going to be a historic meeting, no matter what occurs. We should all pay attention, because this affects us all.
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