Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is widely expected to hold its benchmark Federal Funds Rate steady upon the completion of its June monetary policy meeting. The FOMC has left the target range of the Fed Funds Rate unchanged between a level of 0.25 and 0.50% at each of its first three meetings this year.
Last December, the FOMC ended a seven-year zero interest rate policy by approving its first rate hike in nearly a decade.
When the FOMC met in April, the minutes from the meeting depicted a relatively hawkish committee ready to increase rates further. At an appearance at Harvard University in late-May, Fed chair Janet Yellen signaled that a rate hike could be appropriate in the coming months, as the domestic economy continued to improve and growth continued to pick up. Yellen later backtracked weeks later at a speech in Philadelphia when she removed all timing references to a potential rate hike following the release of weak employment data days earlier. In May, the labor market added 38,000 nonfarm payrolls, its lowest monthly total in six years.
