Quick look at the week ahead

We don’t have any big scheduled news or events coming directly from the PSE or any of its companies this week, but we do have the US Federal Reserve (the “Fed”) decision on US interest rates that we will learn about on Thursday morning. Expectations are that the Fed will do nothing, but all eyes (and ears) are trained on the forward guidance that the Fed will give as part of its discussion of the move. Forbes said that the “markets still see a 40% chance of a rate cut at the subsequent meeting in March.” Reuters wrote about the five signs that a pivot is coming. The Financial Post doesn’t expect cuts in January, but is looking for the Fed to “begin discussing the broad parameters for lowering rates.”

MB bottom-line: For financial news media, covering the Fed’s eventual pivot is like covering the proverbial “watched pot that never boils”. Commentators and analysts work themselves into a lather about exactly when a pivot could happen and what it would mean for the number of possible cuts in the year, only to have the Fed toss a bucket of cold (unboiled) water on the markets by doing nothing and accompanying that with guidance that tries to reframe the situation as far as possible from the “Mission Accomplished” tone in the media. 

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