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Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell
At 2 p.m. ET, the Federal Reserve will release its latest interest-rate decision and views on how the US economy is doing.
The central bank is unlikely to announce an interest-rate hike after its policy meeting, in keeping with its habit only doing so at gatherings that are followed by a press conference. The next such meeting is from June 12-13.
Still, investors will be parsing the statement for how the Fed appraises the economy, and what that suggests about how quickly it would raise interest rates this year and in the long run. According to Bloomberg's World Interest Rates Probability, traders see a 64% chance of a rate hike at the June meeting,
Just before the Federal Open Market Committee's two-day meeting, on Monday, we learned that the Fed's preferred gauge of inflation nearly hit its 2% target after years of lagging behind. Core personal consumption expenditures, a gauge of consumer prices that excludes volatile food and energy costs, rose 1.9% in the year through March. It was the biggest increase since last February, according to a Commerce Department report.
And so, how the Fed characterizes inflation in this statement will be key to watch. It has previously said that 2% is a symmetric target, meaning it's equally as problematic if inflation lingers too far above or below that level.
The Fed's comments on the labor market will also be of interest. Its March statement said the labor market "continued to strengthen." When the April jobs report is released on Friday, economists forecast it would show that nonfarm-payroll additions picked up from just 103,000 in March, according to Bloomberg.