FxWirePro: What to watch in FOMC meet ahead?

The U.S. Federal Reserve is in a hawkish mode. Since December 2015, the U.S. Federal Reserve has hiked rates eight times. It has hiked rates thrice this year in unanimous voting and forecasted one more hike over the remaining two meetings of the year.

FOMC will announce its November monetary policy decision today at 18:00 GMT.

The focus will be on the followings –

• Policy decision –Most of the analysts and economists don’t expect the Fed to increase interest rates by 25 basis points. It is likely to be stored for the December meeting. The market is pricing a 7.2 percent chance of a rate hike at today’s meeting.

• FED’s monetary policy statement – With rate hike not on the card, and with no projections, all the focus will be on the statement.

• Press Conference: No Press conference is scheduled.

With no hikes expected at today’s meeting, and with no conference scheduled, it is likely to be a non-event. However, position shifting at the time might add volatility to the market.

The dollar index is currently trading at 96.18, up 0.2 percent for the day, so far. S&P500 is currently trading at 2800 area, down 0.5 percent for the day so far.