The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady Wednesday and retain its estimate for two interest rate cuts later this year as policymakers stay cautious amid the uncertainty of President Trump’s economic policies.
“The theme out of the meeting is going to be uncertainty, and Fed Chair Powell is probably going to say that over and over,” said Wil Stith, bond portfolio manager for Wilmington Trust.
Investors will be parsing the 2 p.m. ET release of the Fed’s quarterly forecasts, otherwise known as the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), for any clues about the path forward. They will be doing the same with whatever Fed Chair Jerome Powell has to say at his 2:30 p.m. ET post-decision press conference.
Goldman Sachs projects the Fed will boost its 2025 outlook for inflation to 2.8% from 2.5% while dialing back its outlook for economic growth to 1.8% from 2.1% due to the effects of Trump’s tariff rollout.
The latest round of projections will include the much-studied “dot plot,” a chart updated quarterly that shows each Fed official’s prediction about the direction of the central bank’s benchmark interest rate.
Read more: How the Fed rate decision affects your bank accounts, loans, credit cards, and investments
The last dot plot, released in December, revealed a consensus among Fed officials for two cuts this year, revised down from four, as some were already factoring Trump’s expected economic policies into their projections.
Now that Trump is putting those policies into action as president, including a slate of tariffs that may widen in April, the question is whether central bank policymakers will tweak their rates outlook.
Matthew Luzzetti, chief US economist for Deutsche Bank Securities, believes the Fed median for rate cuts in 2025 will remain unchanged at two, though he noted some officials’ projections could drift upward. He also expects the Fed to announce a pause in its balance sheet runoff starting in April.
Luzzetti has long held that the Fed will hold rates steady for the entire year, but he notes that “mounting downside risks to the economy” could cause the central bank to lower rates this year.
“Like the Fed, we hope to get a better sense of the details around policies before deciding whether an adjustment is needed,” he said. “However, the data and financial markets might not allow us (or the Fed) to be so patient.”
The biggest concern for investors is the possibility of a scenario in which growth stalls, inflation persists, and unemployment rises — a dynamic known as stagflation.
