The Federal Reserve will release its June rate decision on Wednesday, with the market expecting the central bank to hold interest rates steady.
Bank of America Securities senior US economist Stephen Juneau and Ritholtz Wealth Management chief market strategist Callie Cox join Morning Brief to discuss their expectations for the Fed meeting as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East rise.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.
Steven, that brings me to what the Fed is going to be looking across and the data points, the hard data that they're going to be evaluating at their meeting. And 50 basis points, it still seems like the market's trying to factor that in by the end of the year. What do you think is the kind of if this then that of their own calculation for us getting to 50 basis points?
Well, first, I think what we're going to see at the meeting is we get these updated projections, and we expect the Fed to go from two cuts this year to one, and just acknowledge that the economy's holding up. When we look at the labor market data, it's been good. Uh, it's been stable. The labor market's not showing signs of significant deterioration. And then inflation's still above target, and they still expect inflation probably to move away from them. So we expect their inflation projections to move higher as they account for the tariff effect. Now we didn't get that in the latest data, but I think this is what they're going to be watching most closely moving forward is how does the inflation data evolve and then how does the labor market data evolve. If inflation moves away from the target and the labor market remains stable, then it's going to going to be difficult for the Fed to get two cuts in this year. We're in the camp that they they don't manage to get any cuts in this year.
Kelly, where does the Fed rank among investor considerations from the talks that you're having and the strategy that you're rolling out?
We don't get many explicit questions about it, but frankly, it it feeds into a lot of the the indirect questions we get around interest rates, uh, the future of the economy and the future of policy. I mean, you have to think about it, interest rates affect how we think about money and what we do with it. Do we spend it? Do we save it? Do we invest it? I mean, if you're worried about mortgage rates, then implicitly, you're probably a little worried about what the Fed does here, even though mortgage rates are priced on more of a long-term perspective. But I'm worried about what the Fed will do here. I think the fact that the Fed's hands are tied are, um, are is something that should maybe keep you a little more cautious heading into the end of the year, especially if the labor market does break more. Um, you know, the inflation outlook too, going back to the Israel-Iran conflict, that worries me. You know, mainly because oil prices do feed into inflation expectations so much. And even though the Fed doesn't base policy on oil prices, it definitely bases policy on inflation expectations, and it's just an incredibly muddy outlook for them.