Just a week past the previous Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) meeting and the countdown to the next one (September 17-18) has begun in earnest. Already various Fed policymakers are out there, some making public hawkish rate comments, others dovish. Call it an intravenous rate news drip feed for investors. I don’t know if it is haphazard or simply on purpose, to keep investors guessing.

September’s FOMC meeting will be particularly interesting because Fed Chairman Jerome Powell might have painted himself into a corner. He is on the record as noting the previous 25 basis points reduction, which took the Fed funds target rate down to 2.00%-2.25%, is a kind of mid-cycle adjustment. "Let me be clear,” he noted after the FOMC meeting. “What I said was it’s not the beginning of a long series of rate cuts." These are words the Fed chairman might be forced to eat.

The market begs to differ. Me? I watch the CME Fed Futures market closely. It has yet to fail me. Currently, it’s positively Trumpian in outlook. Despite the chairman’s stance, the Fed futures trading is adamant. The Fed is cutting in September. 100% probability.

Now I would never make a 100% probability of anything except that I’ll eat chocolate put in front of me. Nevertheless, as this column ha...

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