The Federal Reserve opens its March Open Market Committee meeting today. Most analysts say there is a 100% chance for a rate hike during this go-round. Overall, there is a decidedly hawkish attitude when it comes to the Fed. The real debate right now revolves around whether the central bank will hike three or four times in 2018.
But Peter Schiff said in his most recent podcast he isn’t certain about all of these rate hikes.
The fact is I’m still not 100% sure the Fed is going to hike on Wednesday. Now, I would argue or agree that it’s more likely than not that the Fed is going to hike because they’ve been hiking interest rates all along. The Fed, so far, has not given any indication that they’re not going to hike because they don’t want to give up the ghost of this vibrant recovery where they need to raise rates because everything is going so well. But that whole narrative, that whole illusion, seems to be fading very quickly.”
So, could we see a more dovish Fed before the week is out?
The December Federal Open Market Committee meeting went pretty much according to scrip.
Analysts widely expected the Fed to raise rates by .25. It did. Analysts also expected the Fed to signal three more hikes in 2018. It did that too.
Gold went up, as we said it probably would, hitting a one-week high in the wake of the rate hike as investors “bought the fact.”
