Federal Reserve (Fed) Blackout Period Begins as Investors Await Earnings Reports and Interest Rate Decisions

Reporters reported that the Dow Jones Index has continued to rise.

Investors will be watching the earnings of several major companies this week, including Tesla Inc., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platform Inc.

20% of S&P 500 companies have released Q1 2024 earnings, with 76% of these companies beating analyst estimates.

Federal Reserve (Fed) The Blackout period begins before the Fed holds its monetary policy meeting (FOMC) on April 30-May 1.

CME Group’s latest FedWatch Tool indicates that investors are 99.7% positive that the Fed will keep interest rates at 5.25-5.50% at its April 30-May 1 meeting.

In addition, investors expect the Fed to keep interest rates at 5.25-5.50% at their meetings in June and July. Before interest rates are cut 0.25% to 5.00-5.25% at a meeting in September.

Investors pushed back their forecast of the Fed’s first interest rate cut this year until September. from what was originally expected in June. After Mr. Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, expressed concern about US inflation still high.

Investors will be watching the release of the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) price index on Friday, which will show the direction of US interest rates.

Although the PCE index is a measure of inflation that the Fed cares about. Because it can detect changes in consumer behavior and covers the prices of goods and services more widely than the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Analysts forecast that the Core PCE Index, which includes the food and energy sectors, rose 2.6% in March year-on-year from 2.5% in February. 0.3% in February.

Regarding the Core PCE Index (Core PCE), which does not include the food and energy sectors. It is expected to increase 2.6% in March year-on-year from 2.8% in February On a monthly basis, the core PCE index is expected to increase 0.3% in March from 0.3% also in February.