Federal Reserve Meeting Starts Today

Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) starts its two-day meeting today, where policymakers debate the course of benchmark interest rates. This is the second of the committee's eight meetings for the year. Members will debate what to do with their benchmark federal funds rate, which influences interest rates on all kinds of credit and is used as a tool to temper inflation.

Inflation is proving more stubborn than officials at the Federal Reserve had once hoped, and this week's meeting of the Fed’s policy committee will show how much the latest round of data has altered the central bank’s plans to cut its benchmark interest rate this year.

At stake at this week's two-day meeting is whether, and how much, the Fed will lower the fed funds rate. That rate influences interest on mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, and other kinds of loans, all of which now have borrowing costs close to multi-decade highs. 

"The market is on tenterhooks about when rate cuts will start, how fast those rate cuts will come, or if the Fed will simply hit the 'pause' button on the prospect of rate cuts until deep into 2024," wrote First Trust Advisor economists Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein.

The Fed could, in theory, move the interest rate, however, they’re widely expected to hold it steady. Fed officials have said they are waiting for “greater confidence” that inflation is sustainably on track to meet the central bank’s annual goal of 2%. 

That means all eyes will be on Chair Jerome Powell during his press conference after the decision is released as well as the quarterly "dot plot" which will show how FOMC members view the economic outlook and how high officials think the Fed funds rate will be for the next few years. 

Read more about what to look out for tomorrow here.

Read more about how these meetings work here.

Homebuilding Got Off To A Roaring Start in February

Homebuilding bounced back in a big way in February, rebounding from bad weather in January that stifled new construction.

If U.S. builders kept up the pace set in February, they’d start 1.5 million homes over 12 months, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. That was a 10.7% increase from January’s seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 1.3 million, and far more than the consensus projection for 1.4 million according to a survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal.

Building permits for housing, an indicator of future activity, also beat expectations, rising 1.9% from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.5 million.

Should the uptick in building prove to be a lasting trend, it would be just what the doctor ordered for the housing market, which is suffering from a lack of for-sale inventory as homeowners “locked in” to low pandemic-era mortgage rates remain reluctant to sell.

However, economists are usually reluctant to read too much into the state of the economy based on any one month’s housing starts report, since the weather influences it and is notoriously volatile, prone to large swings up and down.