One of the main policy tools of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) chaired by Janet Yellen is the Fed Funds overnight rate that banks charge each other to borrow Fed Funds. The FOMC attempts to fix this rate by buying or selling Fed Funds in the open market.
There are Fed Funds futures markets which allow hedgers and speculators to buy or sell Fed Funds in the future. At the Countdown to the Fed feature on the CME Group website, one can see the current probabilities for the Fed Funds rate at future dates. From this page the following information can be gleaned.
There are Fed Funds futures markets which allow hedgers and speculators to buy or sell Fed Funds in the future. At the Countdown to the Fed feature on the CME Group website, one can see the current probabilities for the Fed Funds rate at future dates. From this page the following information can be gleaned.
- As of the 3/2/2017 market close the Fed Funds futures market is saying there is now a 75.3% probability that the FOMC will increase the Fed Funds target rate at their March 15th meeting - which is why interest rates in general have been rising in the past week.
- According to the Fed Funds Futures market, there is a greater than 60% probability that the Fed Funds rate will be .75% higher than currently and a > 25% chance that it will be 1.00% higher on January 31st, 2018. 3 hikes in 2017 is now market expectations.
RSS Feed
