According to ChainCatcher, the Federal Reserve will announce its last interest rate decision of the year at 3 a.m. Beijing time on Thursday. According to futures contracts, the market generally expects the Federal Reserve to cut the benchmark interest rate by another 25 basis points this week. This move will bring the federal funds rate to a target range of 4.25% to 4.5%, a full percentage point lower than when the rate cut began in September.
Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at BNY Mellon and former director of the Fed's monetary affairs department, believes that "the Fed is clearly in trouble. For officials, unless they are very sure what changes will happen in the political economy, they can't really change their forecasts to respond to these changes. At the press conference, people were most concerned about the idea of skipping a rate cut. So I think in this regard, this will be a hawkish rate cut. (Only) as (Trump's) policies are actually in place, the Fed may further update its forecasts. "(Jinshi)
