Jerome Powell will make his first big mark. If Trump keeps his antics up I'm all for sticking to 3 rate hikes, BUT if we have a decent presidency that actually listened to the advisors I would love to see 4 rates and mid-2019 interest rates at 2% which would set it equal to inflation.
Although the Phillips curve has been discredited it is still useful for short-term inflation expectations. We know unemployment continues to fall so inflation should be expected to rise. We saw this happen in our last core PCE survey. *PCE = consumer price index which excludes energy and food
Taylor Rule (John Taylor was my preferred fed chairman after Janet Yellen) suggests that the Fed raise interest rates during above-average growth and stay neutral during steady growth. [source]
Will we see an increase to 4 rate hikes? We can interpret after our next core PCE and employment survey. March survey will be released on April 11th. Another indicator for job growth is the S&P 500. I think despite the recent correction a higher S&P could bring us our 2.0% inflation rate.
Wednesday will end the 2 day meeting and we will have clear indication on which direction the Fed chooses to go, but my speculation is on 4 rate hikes this year. I am long the Dollar Index this week.
https://360wm.net/gdp-pce-jobs-weekly-economic-commentary-february-5-2018/
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10YIE
https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-inflation-rate-statistics-and-news-3306139