The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise rates by 0.25% at its meeting today, which many analysts see as the likely final step within the current cycle of monetary tightening.
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- The US Federal Reserve will meet today to decide upon its Federal Funds Rate and to release a Statement. It is strongly expected that the Fed will hike its Federal Funds Rate by 0.25% to a relatively high 5.25%, a rate which has not been seen for many years. Many analysts expect that this will be the final rate hike within the current tightening cycle, but some analysts think there will be one further hike at the subsequent meeting in June.
- There are renewed concerns over the US banking sector, as regional bank shares fell quite strongly. The expected upcoming rate hike has intensified jitters over this sector.
- WTI Crude Oil fell by $5 per barrel as risky assets sold off due to increased fears over the prospect of the US falling into recession later this year.
- In the Forex market, the US Dollar is falling again in line with its long-term bearish trend. The New Zealand Dollar and the Japanese Yen are showing the greatest short-term strength while the US Dollar is clearly the weakest currency, with the USD/JPY currency pair falling strongly after making a long-term high closing price two days ago. The long-term bearish trend in the US Dollar remains valid, and trend traders may also be looking for long trades in the EUR/USD and GBP/USD currency pairs.
- Stock markets have been mixed but overall have mostly been weakly bearish.
- JOLTS Job Openings data came in slightly worse yesterday than was expected.
- New Zealand Unemployment Rate data just released showed better than expected jobs data, with the rate of 3.4% being maintained when it had been expected to rise slightly.
- It is expected that the ADP non-farm payrolls forecast will predict that 148k new jobs will have been created last month.
- It will be a public holiday in Japan tomorrow.
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