The minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting will be released today. Lately, the US financial regulator has been providing clear signs that at the November meeting, the officials again unanimously advocated higher interest rates in the future. The key question that the minutes will answer is whether there will be adjustments to future policy to fight against inflation, which remains at the highest levels for the past decades.
I do not expect that today's protocol will have any major impact on the market. Most likely, the reaction will be restrained, since the minutes will not reveal anything new. Following the FOMC policy meeting in November, Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters that rates were likely to rise even higher than the committee expected this September. At that time, the expected level was about 5.25-5.5% which is quite high.
In the same week, some Fed officials suddenly changed their tone to a more dovish one, which affected the market to some extent. For this reason, today's minutes may provide investors with the clues they believe in, and not what the financial regulator really wanted to convey to them, thus fueling another increase in demand for risky assets.
At the post-meeting press conference, Powell linked the Fed's concept of introducing a rate cap to the disappointing October inflation report that had been released earlier. The data released in November prompted the Fed to slightly adjust its policy, as the inflation slowdown was happening too slowly. The FOMC pays close attention to the correlation between short-term inflation data and the ultimate interest rate target, which is now critical for investors. The officials will share their new forecasts at the next meeting on December 13-14.
It is important that Fed officials have a shared opinion. The fact that rates will be raised in December is undisputable. The question is whether every FOMC member will vote for the future plans of putting a limit on the interest rate hikes. The Fed has already launched an aggressive monetary tightening campaign this year, including a 0.75 rate hike at each of its last four meetings. : when Fed officials are finally satisfied enough with progress on inflation to allow them to stop raising rates entirely. Another key question is when Fed officials will finally be satisfied enough with the inflation to stop raising rates.
The latest report of the Department of Labor revealed a long-awaited reduction in inflationary pressures. However, these optimistic figures may not be enough to influence the Fed's plans. Investors expect the Fed to raise rates by only half a point at the December meeting, leaving the target range for the benchmark at 4.5%, with the rate peaking around 5% next year. As I noted above, many Fed politicians this week, including Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, confirmed dovish expectations in their comments.
Speaking of technical analysis, it seems that the current trend in EURUSD is favoring EUR bulls. Obviously, the demand for risky assets has returned after the dovish comments from the Fed. The euro may rise higher if it breaks above 1.0330, which will open the way towards 1.0380. Above this level, the pair may reach as high as 1.0430. In case the bearish scenario unfolds, only a failure to break the support at 1.0280 would push EURUSD back to 1.0220 with the prospect of falling to a low of 1.0170.
As for the GBPUSD pair, the British currency continues rising. Buyers seem to be focused on holding the support level of 1.1900 retesting 1.1970 mark that limits further growth. A break of 1.1970 will strengthen hopes for a further recovery to 1.2020 area. After it, GBP will have every chance of jumping to 1.2080 area. If the bears take control of 1.1900, the pair will get under pressure again. This will undermine bulls' strength and push GBPUSD back towards 1.1830 and 1.1770.