The Federal Reserve blackout starts at midnight ET but it looks like it will begin about 12 hours before that with a light calendar of Fed speakers today.
The lone one on the schedule is Boston Fed President Susan Collins speaking in a fireside chat about the Boston Fed’s wide ranging work. I wouldn’t expect market-moving comments there and it looks like the Fed’s work is done with pricing for the November 7 FOMC at 95% for a 25 basis point cut.
I think the final message was sent Monday with the Fed’s Daly saying ‘So far have not seen
anything that would suggest we would not continue to cut rates’ and ‘to get a soft landing accomplished we have to adjust policy rate as inflation falls.’
That’s a strong hint that another 25 bps is coming, with that caveat that next week’s GDP and jobs numbers could be extremely strong. Even then, I could see the Fed waiting until January or March to pause as rates are still at 4.75-5.00%.
