"When is the next Fed meeting?" is a question that hasn't weighed this heavily on anxious investors' minds in probably four decades.
Which is fair enough, really. The worst bout of inflation to hit the U.S. economy in 40 years peaked two years ago, and yet the Federal Reserve has yet to conclusively abandon the most aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes since the late Carter and early Reagan administrations.
The central bank's rate-setting committee wrapped up its June policy meeting by keeping the short-term federal funds rate unchanged at 5.25% to 5.5%. More interesting was the quarterly Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), also known as the dot plot, which shows the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) estimated path forward for rates.
Per the dot plot, the Fed now sees just one quarter-point cut coming before year-end, down from the three cuts it forecast in March.
Overly optimistic market participants were expecting at least six rate reductions in 2024, but sticky inflation data and a robust labor market forced the Fed to delay its pivot toward easing. As part of that pushed out timeline, the FOMC median forecast now sees four quarter-point cuts in 2025, up from three cuts expected in the previous projections.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said repeatedly that Fed policy is "data dependent." Unfortunately, sticky inflation and mixed economic data aren't conclusively helping the case for lower interest rates.
Although economists as a group have become more optimistic about the path of the economy, surveys show they still put the odds of a recession hitting in the next 12 months at about 40%. They have good reasons to remain cautious. The bond market is awash in inverted yield curves, for one thing, and that's not very reassuring at all. The New York Fed's yield-curve model gives a 56% probability to the U.S. entering a recession over the next 12 months.
Then there's the labor market, which remains stronger than the Fed would probably like. Although a softer June jobs report raised rate-cut bets, the central bank has remained steadfast in its data-dependent policy toward easing.
When you consider the Fed's dual mandate of promoting both "maximum" employment and stable prices against the backdrop of sticky inflation, a slowing economy and softer labor market, no wonder investors are obsessed with the question of "when is the next Fed meeting?"
The next Fed meeting: what to expect
(Image credit: Getty Images)
For the record, the central bank's rate-setting committee is called the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
As you can see from the FOMC meeting calendar below, the committee meets eight times a year. These meetings last two days and conclude with the FOMC releasing its policy decision at 2 pm Eastern time. The Fed chief then holds a press conference at 2:30 pm. (Pro tip: as closely scrutinized as the Fed statement might be, market participants are usually even more keen on what the Fed chair has to say in the press conference.)
As for the next Fed meeting, it will begin on July 30 and conclude with a policy statement on July 31 at 2 pm Eastern. (Be sure to check out Kiplinger's live Fed meeting updates and commentary on Fed day.)
The FOMC has the fed funds rate sitting at 23-year high, and the market is confident it will keep it there for some time.
Indeed, as of July 10, interest rate traders assigned a 95% probability to the FOMC leaving the short-term federal funds rate unchanged at a target range of 5.25% to 5.50%, according to CME Group's FedWatch Tool. More than 70% of traders believe the Fed will enact its first quarter-point cut at the following meeting in September.
For those wondering "when is the next Fed meeting?," have a look at the schedule, courtesy of the FOMC, below.
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Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.
A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.
Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.
In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.
Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.
Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.
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