There’s not much question of what the Federal Reserve will do at its March 20 meeting. The odds–99% on the CME Fed Watch Tool–are that the Fed will do nothing and leave interest rates at the current 5.25%-5.50% benchmark.
But that day the Fed will also release its most recent quarterly revision of economic projections for the year ahead, the Dot Plot. And those projections will have, potentially, market moving power.
The central question: Will the Fed hold to its projection of two interest rate cuts in 2024 or will the bank, worried by recent evidence that inflation has been stubbornly high in recent months, point toward just one cut by the end of the year?
In December when the Fed last revised these projections, the median projection among Fed bank presidents and Fed board members was that the benchmark Fed interest rate would end 2024 at 4.6%. That was substantially lower than the median projection in the September Dot Plot of an end of 2024 rate at 5.1%.
In other words, the Fed saw two interest rate cuts in 2024. That was far fewer than the financial markets had been projecting–expectations then ranged from 3 cuts to 5. But it was confirmation that the central bank would move to cut rates in 2024. And that was just more fuel for an end of the year rally.
But since that December Dot Plot we’ve had two months of CPI inflation reports showing that inflation is proving very sticky and has stopped falling. The report for February released on Tuesday showed the annual rate at 3.8% for the month. Economists had been looking for 3.7%.
So what will the median projection in the March Dot Plot say? Still two cuts in 2024? A more cautious stance with just one cut? (I don’t think there’s much chance that the Fed, after preaching patience for the last few weeks, will project an accelerated pace for interest rate cuts.)
A projection of any less than two cuts will disappoint a stock market that’s still getting used to the idea that the first cut will be delayed until the Fed’s June meeting.
