A few things before the Fed/BoJ still has hiking bias

While the Federal Reserve is becoming less relevant in terms of its ability to influence events and is sort of frozen in time in its ability to react, it's still always an interesting day when their economic projections are released along with the statement and presser. The obvious thought is that their GDP estimates are trimmed, its inflation projections are tweaked higher (if tariffs are a one time step up in price, then inflation forecasts should be one time stepped up this year) and the 50 bps jump in the U6 unemployment rate seen for February should lead to an estimate shift upward in their estimate on unemployment. It all points to a stagflationary set of forecasts.

That said, the two more expected rate cuts seen in the December projections (a median fed funds rate of 3.9%) I don't think will change as I believe there is still an easing bias within Powell and the institution's thought process. Overall though, visibility is extremely limited as we all know and maybe we'll need a word count from Powell today on him saying "I don't know."