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The Fed all but confirmed the U-turn that many were expecting. Whilst rates remained on hold, almost half of voting members now see two rate cuts this year.

Risk-off has taken centre stage again this week, yet the U-turn reversal on yields suggests a corrective bounce could be due and provide a sympathy bounce for markets.

Post-Fed, the Doves are on parade, treasury yields have fallen and bets for a cut in 2019 have increased. Certainly not a bad day in the office if you’re bearish USD.

Heading into arguably the last major market event of 2018, traders felt they had a decent grasp on what the Federal Reserve would do.

Despite US stock and bond markets closed in honor of President George H. W. Bush’s passing, we’ve seen a surprising amount of volatility in the FX market.

"We may go past neutral, but we're a long way from neutral at this point, probably." - Fed Chair Powell, 3 October “[Interest rates] remain just below the broad range of estimates of… neutral” -Fed Chair Powell, 28 November Oh, what a difference a month makes!

If you’re one of the many readers who did, you’re excused for forgetting about today’s Federal Reserve meeting. After all, the high political drama in Washington and London continues to draw plenty of headlines, it’s the first time we’ve seen an FOMC meeting conclude on a Thursday in three years, and the central bank was never going to make any chan...

Much like we saw with the Bank of England meeting getting overshadowed by Brexit developments earlier this week, traditional market-moving economic releases are taking a back seat to geopolitical developments in the US as well.

As my colleague Fawad Razaqzada astutely highlighted in yesterday’s NFP Preview report, “wage growth has taken on increased importance than the actual jobs number given concerns about rising levels of inflation and in turn interest rates.” That dynamic is playing out in spades as traders digest today’s jobs report.

In yesterday’s article, we highlighted the crosswinds impacting today’s speech by Fed Chairman Powell at the Jackson Hole Symposium, eventually concluding that, “Powell [should] maintain the same optimistic perspective he espoused at his Congressional testimony last month”

As my colleague Fawad Razaqzada noted on Friday, this week promises to be an interesting one for FX traders, with the Bank of England, Bank of Japan, Federal Reserve all set to meet, in addition to the always-noteworthy monthly Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

As is often the case with central bank meetings in the era of communication-as-a-policy-tool, the Bank of England’s “decision” (read: no change) on interest rates was already telegraphed well in advance. But for the always forward-looking markets, there was still plenty to digest from this morning’s BOE statement.