What FOMC will sound like on Thursday

He adds that “no doubt” that Yellen will say at her press conference that Fed expects to tighten over time; yet hard for Fed to be “overly hawkish” since September statement will need to explain why policy makers aren’t hiking this week. FOMC may decide statement should remain neutral, leave it to Yellen to deliver “close but not quite there yet” message.

Looking at the dot plot, the ICAP economist believes that the “dots” will likely continue to show almost all FOMC members favoring at least one hike in 2016, along with slightly shallower tightening trajectory in 2017 and additional downward drift in estimates of long-run neutral rate. He concludes that the FOMC’s forecasting record has become a “sore point for many”; tightening in middle of what turned out to be a “soft” spell of data “would not be helpful to the institution”

Finally, looking at the near future, he says that a November hike “is not very plausible”; in absence of “extreme data outcome,” Fed should “keep its head down” in the week before a presidential election.

The question then is whether December is still live. The answer most likely depends on who the next US president is.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-19/icap-window-opportunity-fed-rate-hike-has-closed