Fed In The Spotlight This Week As Rate Hike Bets Are Pushed Back

This week will be a big week for the US Federal Reserve as the bank is set to release the minutes from its April meeting on Wednesday and several Fed officials are set to speak shortly thereafter. Analysts hoping to predict when the bank is planning to raise interest rates will be scouring the minutes and tuning in for the talks to look for any indication of the bank's future plans. Confident In April Back in April, the bank acknowledged that economic data in the first quarter had been lackluster, but remained confident in a rebound. The Fed maintained its current interest rate and assured markets that it would not tighten any further until the US economy was on solid ground and inflation was heading towards the bank's 2 percent objective. Data Suggests Weakness Persisted However in the days since the meeting, new data has suggested that the US' sluggish growth continued. Last week, data showed that industrial production declined 0.3 percent in April, the fifth straight month of contraction. A slew of other disappointing figures including consumer sentiment and retail sales also indicated economic weakness. The data prompted analysts to reduce their growth forecasts for the second quarter and many believe that first quarter GDP could be revised to reflect a contraction. Cause For Concern So, while April's meeting minutes will give markets more insight into the bank's plans, traders are likely to focus on talks from Fed Chair Janet Yellen as well as several other Fed officials to get a better picture of the bank's plans now that more data has been released. Most expect Yellen's comments to indicate that a rate hike in June is off the table, with some suggesting that even a September estimate is too early.