Federal Reserve FOMC Policy Meeting June 12-13, Interest Rate Hike

FOMC Press Conference

LIVE June 13, 2018, at 2:30pm EDT.

The Federal Reserve (federalreserve.gov) FOMC started its two-day policy meeting on Tuesday, and as expected announced another increase in near-term interest rates of 25 basis points [0.25%] on Wednesday, as well as release a Summary of Economic Projections. A press conference by the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at approximately 2:30 pm EDT, LIVE here embed above.

FOMC's target federal funds rate or range, change (basis points) and level

The Fed - Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) | federalreserve.gov: 2018 Committee Members Jerome H. Powell, Board of Governors, Chairman; William C. Dudley, New York, Vice Chairman; Thomas I. Barkin, Richmond; Raphael W. Bostic, Atlanta; Lael Brainard, Board of Governors; Loretta J. Mester, Cleveland; Randal K. Quarles, Board of Governors; John C. Williams, San Francisco.

Compare the above rates with the European Central Bank(ECB) rates:

@FederalReserve
Tweets by federalreserve

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
Follow @DomainMondo

DISCLAIMER

LIVE Video Replay: March 15 Federal Reserve FOMC Press Conference

FOMC Press Conference March 15, 2017, 2:30pm ET

Video above published March 15, 2017, by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is Janet Yellen.

On March 15th, the FOMC raised the interest rate by 25 BPS as expected. Federal Open Market Committee statement--excerpt: "In view of realized and expected labor market conditions and inflation, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 3/4 to 1 percent. The stance of monetary policy remains accommodative, thereby supporting some further strengthening in labor market conditions and a sustained return to 2 percent inflation."

DJIA and S&P500 closed UP Wednesday after FOMC Rate Hike

FRB: Monetary Policy: "Federal Open Market Committee Monetary policy is made by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which consists of the members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and five Reserve Bank presidents. The FOMC holds eight regularly scheduled meetings during the year, and other meetings as needed."

• Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Calendar 
• FOMC Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy (PDF)
• FOMC Policy Normalization Principles and Plans
• Related information: Recent Statement | Recent Minutes | View All
• FOMC Transcripts and Other Historical Materials: 2011 FOMC Transcripts, Presentation Materials, Agendas, Tealbooks, and SEP Individual Projections

Fed Statement Tracker | WSJ.com: The Federal Reserve releases a statement at the conclusion of each of its policy-setting meetings, outlining the central bank’s economic outlook and the actions it plans to take. Pundits and traders parse the changes between statements closely to see how policy makers’ views are evolving. Use the tool at the link above to compare any two statements since 2007.

Gundlach expects short-term rally in U.S. Treasuries on hawkish Fed: CNBC https://t.co/sDTCMDCeBK #fed RTRS

— Pablo Piovano (@pabspiovano) March 15, 2017

@FederalReserve #FOMC:
Tweets by federalreserve

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
Follow @DomainMondo

DISCLAIMER

ICANN58 | Copenhagen | Info & Links

$SNAP Just Snapped, Global Market Volatility Increases, EU Doomed?

Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) stock price fell Monday, March 6, 2017 (see chart above), erasing all of its post-IPO gains and fell back beneath $24.00, the price that it opened at last Thursday.

UPDATE March 7, 2017: $SNAP Closes Down 24% Since Monday's Open:

Markets Fall as Volatility Increases Across the Globe | moneymorning.com: "SNAP stock fell more than 12% after an advocacy group representing large institutional investors approached several stock market index providers. The advocacy group asked to bar companies that fail to provide voting rights to shareholders on the open market from their stock benchmarks."

What else is bothering markets? Geopolitical risks from Washington, D.C. to the EU to China to North Korea. Here are two views of the building crisis in the European Union (EU):

Farage: The EU is dying before our very eyes

Video above published Mar 6, 2017, by FoxBusiness.com: Nigel Farage, former UK Independence Party leader, on what to expect from President Trump's meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the state of play in the upcoming elections in the Netherlands and France.

The European Union is facing a threat to its very existence

Video above published Mar 6, 2017, by The Economist | Economist.com: The Treaty of Rome was signed 60 years ago this month. But can European leaders make the EU appealing to a new generation of more sceptical voters?

In addition, the Fed's FOMC appears set for an interest rate increase at its next meeting March 14-15, and some Wall Street investors are in addict-like withdrawal from 8+ years of ZIRP.

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
Follow @DomainMondo

DISCLAIMER

U.S. Federal Reserve FOMC Press Conference LIVE Video Replay 12/14/16

FOMC Press Conference, December 14, 2016:

Streamed LIVE December 14, 2016, at 2:30 pm EST (US): Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Press Conference

See also:

• FRB: Press Release--Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement--December 14, 2016: "... the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 1/2 to 3/4 percent."
• Dow hits record high after Fed raises interest rates | CNBC.com: "... the macro environment has changed dramatically."  3 more hikes likely in 2017. 
• Dow Heading for 20,000, Stocks Rise, Gold Falls Ahead of Fed Rate Hike | DomainMondo.com
• @federalreserve

About the FOMC (source: federalreserve.gov):

The term "monetary policy" refers to the actions undertaken by a central bank, such as the Federal Reserve, to influence the availability and cost of money and credit to help promote national economic goals. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 gave the Federal Reserve responsibility for setting monetary policy.

The Federal Reserve controls the three tools of monetary policy--open market operations, the discount rate, and reserve requirements. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is responsible for the discount rate and reserve requirements, and the Federal Open Market Committee is responsible for open market operations. Using the three tools, the Federal Reserve influences the demand for, and supply of, balances that depository institutions hold at Federal Reserve Banks and in this way alters the federal funds rate. The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions lend balances at the Federal Reserve to other depository institutions overnight.

Changes in the federal funds rate trigger a chain of events that affect other short-term interest rates, foreign exchange rates, long-term interest rates, the amount of money and credit, and, ultimately, a range of economic variables, including employment, output, and prices of goods and services.

Structure of the FOMC

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) consists of twelve members--the seven members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; and four of the remaining eleven Reserve Bank presidents, who serve one-year terms on a rotating basis. The rotating seats are filled from the following four groups of Banks, one Bank president from each group: Boston, Philadelphia, and Richmond; Cleveland and Chicago; Atlanta, St. Louis, and Dallas; and Minneapolis, Kansas City, and San Francisco. Nonvoting Reserve Bank presidents attend the meetings of the Committee, participate in the discussions, and contribute to the Committee's assessment of the economy and policy options.

The FOMC holds eight regularly scheduled meetings per year. At these meetings, the Committee reviews economic and financial conditions, determines the appropriate stance of monetary policy, and assesses the risks to its long-run goals of price stability and sustainable economic growth.

For more detail on the FOMC and monetary policy, see section 2 of the brochure on the structure of the Federal Reserve System and chapter 2 of Purposes & Functions of the Federal Reserve System. FOMC Rules and Authorizations are also available online.

2016 Committee Members
Janet L. Yellen, Board of Governors, Chair
William C. Dudley, New York, Vice Chairman
Lael Brainard, Board of Governors
James Bullard, St. Louis
Stanley Fischer, Board of Governors
Esther L. George, Kansas City
Loretta J. Mester, Cleveland
Jerome H. Powell, Board of Governors
Eric Rosengren, Boston
Daniel K. Tarullo, Board of Governors

Alternate Members
Charles L. Evans, Chicago
Patrick Harker, Philadelphia
Robert S. Kaplan, Dallas
Neel Kashkari, Minneapolis
Michael Strine, First Vice President, New York

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
Follow @DomainMondo

DISCLAIMER

Dow Heading for 20,000, Stocks Rise, Gold Falls Ahead of Fed Rate Hike

Blue-chip index nears milestone as tech joins the Trump rally--Traders assign 100% odds to a Fed rate hike on Wednesday:

DJIA 3-month chart (source: google.com)

S&P500 Index (source: google.com)

Fed Interest Rate Hike Bad News For China? At the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday, an interest rate hike of 0.25% is expected. This rate hike will be only the second increase by the Federal Reserve in 10 years (the first increase took place December 2015). This may have ramifications on emerging markets in general and China in particular which faces an economic slowdown. A U.S. interest rate increase will likely increase capital outflows and generate additional growth headwinds for China. 

Headlines Tuesday leading up to the expected Fed Rate Hike:

Dow Heads for 20,000 as Stocks Rise, Gold Falls: "Global stocks advanced, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average within 50 points of 20,000 on speculation that the Federal Reserve’s expected rate increase is a signal of confidence that the economy is strengthening. The dollar and Treasuries were little changed. IBM Corp. and Intel Corp. led gains in the blue-chip index as it heads for a fresh record and the round-number milestone ... Its relative-strength index stood at the highest level in two decades ..."--Bloomberg.com

IBM Lays Out Plans to Hire 25,000 in U.S. Ahead of Trump Meeting: "IBM Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty said she plans to hire about 25,000 people in the U.S. and invest $1 billion over the next four years, laying out her vision for filling technology jobs in America on the eve of a meeting of industry leaders with President-elect Donald Trump. Rometty, who is on Trump’s advisory panel of business leaders, will join Facebook Inc.’s Sheryl Sandberg, Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos and Alphabet Inc.’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt at a summit with Trump Wednesday in New York that is said to focus on jobs."--Bloomberg.com

Small Business Owners' Optimism Skyrockets Following Trump Victory: "The November reading of the National Federation of Independent Businesses' small business optimism index jumped to 98.4 from 94.9 — its sharpest surge since 2009 — with all of the increase in sentiment coming after the U.S. elections held on Nov. 8."--Bloomberg.com

After talking with Trump, Bill Gates likens president-elect to JFK: "... in the same way President Kennedy talked about the space mission and got the country behind that, I think whether it's education or stopping epidemics ... [or] in this energy space, there can be a very upbeat message that [Trump's] administration [is] going to organize things, get rid of regulatory barriers, and have American leadership through innovation ... Of course, my whole career has been along those lines. And he was interested in listening to that. And I'm sure there will be further conversation."--Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates after recently speaking with Trump--CNBC.com.

"Allegations of Hacking Election Are Baseless" Say High-Level American Intelligence Officials: "The various ways in which usually anonymous spokespeople for U.S. intelligence agencies are equivocating – saying things like “our best guess” or “our opinion” or “our estimate” etc. – shows that the emails alleged to have been “hacked” cannot be traced across the network. Given NSA’s extensive trace capability, we conclude that DNC and HRC servers alleged to have been hacked were, in fact, not hacked."--WashingtonsBlog.com

Obama Says No Evidence that Russia Tampered with Votes in Election: During an interview with the Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, Obama downplayed the hack of a private email account of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta. "We were frankly more concerned in the run up to the election to the possibilities of vote tampering, which we did not see evidence of, and we’re confident that we can guard against ... None of this should be a big surprise,” Obama said, “Russia trying to influence our elections dates back to the Soviet Union.” Obama dismissed the hack and the leaked emails as “not very interesting” and lacking “explosive” revelations. He puzzled as to why it was an “obsession” by the news media despite the knowledge that the Russians were responsible.--Breitbart.com.

Trump's selection of  Tillerson lifts hope of US rapprochement in Moscow: "Sergei Karaganov, one of Russia's most senior foreign policy hands, says the difference is that Tillerson is a hard-nosed pragmatist who [as Secretary of State] will focus on getting things done, and leave aside the many political and philosophical issues where Russia and the US will never agree. Like many in Moscow's upper circles, Mr. Karaganov has met Tillerson and says that his ratification would be a signal that genuine and lasting detente between the two powers is a real possibility."--CSMonitor.com

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
Follow @DomainMondo

DISCLAIMER