FOMC

Federal Reserve officials met for the first time under new Fed Chairman Jerome Powell this week. What Happened The Fed raised the benchmark interest rate by one-quarter of a point to a range of 1.5 percent to 1.75 percent. The discount rate was raised from 2 percent to 2.25 percent. The...

Janet Yellen, the pro tem chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, is entering the final stretch of her time at the helm of the world’s most powerful and influential central bank. Yellen submitted her resignation Nov. 11, effective once her successor is sworn in next year. A Historic Stint...

Having already laid the groundwork with two interest rate hikes this year, the Federal Open Market Committee took an unprecedented step to tighten its monetary policy Wednesday. As expected, the FOMC confirmed it would begin to contract its sizeable balance sheet and shrink its bond portfolio in...

Recently, when Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen went up to Capitol Hill for her semi-annual monetary policy testimony, the market was caught unawares. Traders have begun to discount an environment, where the fed funds rate would continue to rise steadily and by small increments, and the incoming...

Economic health is sound enough for the market to expect the Fed to continue with its measured pace of rate increases. Therefore, when Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen sounded dovish at last week's semi-annual monetary policy testimony, it came as a surprise. The testimony, which cast a cloud of...

Macroeconomic events and releases move markets in varying degrees, with some possessing the potential to move markets in a big way, are termed as first-tier economic data. Meanwhile, there are others that are relatively inane and don't cause big swings in the market. Less market-moving...

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates earlier this week, marking the second time this year that the U.S. central bank has boosted borrowing costs. That move by the Fed has helped the PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (NYSE: UUP), widely viewed as a dud this year among developed market...

The U.S. dollar is one of this year's most disappointing developed market currencies, but that is not helping the commodities complex. Most commodities, an asset class denominated in dollars, are sagging, but some precious metals have been notable exceptions. Among exchange-traded products, the...

Next week is a Federal Reserve week with plenty of market participants expecting the Federal Open Market Committee to boost U.S. interest rates. Gold and the related exchange traded products, including the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD), often come into focus during Fed weeks. What Fed Means For Gold...

In the Federal Reserve's current tightening campaign, the Federal Open Market Committee has looked into shrinking the central bank’s balance sheet. The median dealer expects the FOMC to allow the balance sheet to begin shrinking in the second quarter of 2018, according to the March survey...