Fed Rate Hike Predictions All Over The Board Leading Up To This Week's Meeting

The Federal Reserve has been caught in a precarious position this year as investors hang on to the bank's every word looking for clues about when the bank is planning to raise interest rates.

Although the Fed has tried to keep its intentions transparent and has promised to base its rate decision on economic data, the bank has struggled to keep markets abreast of its plans without creating panic.

Careful Messaging

The bank has been careful in the wording of its forward guidance from month to month, but the Fed's decision to remove the word "patient" from its policy statement gave investors reason to believe a rate hike was on the horizon.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen has been reassuring markets that the bank will raise rates slowly and incrementally so as not to disrupt markets, something that has been keeping investors relatively calm.

Related Link: U.S. Bancorp CEO: Businesses Will Take Action The Minute The Fed Raises Rates

Not This Month

This week's policy meeting isn't expected to yield any major policy changes, though some are hoping that the bank's rhetoric will provide more clues on timing. Many see September as the most likely month for rate increases, though others say the bank will be forced to hold off until 2016 due to worse-than-expected economic data.

Labor Figures Questionable

One of the bank's key criteria for a rate increase has been the health of the labor market. The bank said that the natural rate of unemployment was between 5 and 5.2 percent, but a new study shows that may be a significant underestimate.

Fed economists David Ratner and Andrew Figura found that the figure could be closer to 4.3 percent, suggesting that a rate hike is unnecessary at this point in time.