Wednesday’s Federal Reserve (Fed) decision to keep the federal funds rate unchanged wasn’t a surprise at all. Markets, as we argued last week, had predicted that the Fed was going to stay put and that is what it did. Coming out of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, it kept another rate hike alive before the end of this year. It seems that markets are already second-guessing the Fed’s commitment as the betting markets are expecting, so far, that the Fed is going keep the pause for the rest of the year. If markets end up being correct, this will mean that 5.25%-5.50% is the end-of-cycle rate for this ... (full story)