How will the Fed set the fed funds rate at their next scheduled meeting, March 21-22 2023? Resolves YES if they raise the rate, otherwise NO.
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The Fed's March meeting is near,
To raise or not to raise, that's the fear.
The market's guessing, but who can tell?
Will Powell's hammer drop or will it farewell?
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange federal funds futures market puts 62% on a 0.25 basis point rise and 38% chance of no increase at all.
Also, from Bloomberg:
The details of the [January CPI] report showed shelter was “by far” the largest contributor to the monthly advance, accounting for almost half of the rise. Used car prices — a key driver of disinflation in recent months — fell for a seventh month. Energy prices rose for the first time in three months.
Shelter costs, which are the biggest services component and make up about a third of the overall CPI index, rose 0.7% last month. Owners’ equivalent rent and rent of primary residence increased by the same amount, while hotel stays also climbed.
Because of the way the housing metrics are calculated, there’s a significant lag between real-time price changes and the government statistics.
I know CPI was higher than usual, which presumably makes people expect the Fed to plough on with hikes despite SVB, but I don't think it's as big of a deal as the headlines imply: these shelter costs are lagging indicator and, anyway, are Fed rates really going to bring down rent spending? It seems like a housing supply issue (and demand's always going to be fairly inelastic).
The prices for everything-but-shelter have been flat since June, it seems:
(I'm genuinely asking whether people expect interest rates to affect shelter costs by the way, I don't know much about macro...)
