Fed Watch: Still Waiting

Key Takeaways

• The Fed held rates steady at 4.25%–4.50% at the May FOMC meeting, reinforcing a cautious, data-dependent stance amid ongoing tariff-related economic uncertainty.
• While Q1 GDP showed a modest contraction, labor markets and underlying domestic demand remained resilient, giving the Fed cover to delay any immediate rate cuts.
• With quantitative tightening already slowing and labor markets staying firm, investors could see fewer rate cuts in 2025 than initially expected.

Once again, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided to keep rates unchanged at today’s meeting, leaving the Fed Funds trading range at 4.25%-4.50%, keeping the level for overnight money 100 basis points (bps) below last year’s peak reading. The decision to keep Fed Funds at its current level came as little surprise, as the Fed appears to be sitting back and waiting to see how the economic and inflation landscapes unfold, given the uncertainties that have arisen from tariff-related developments. Needless to say, it is not just the Fed but also the markets that are in wait-and-see mode. 

Powell & Co. have been consistently expressing their opinion that the uncertainties surrounding topics such as tariffs and, to a lesser extent, federal government cost-cutting had placed a cloud of sorts over the economic and inflation outlooks going forward. Interestingly, as we sit here in the present time, it does not appear as if this cloud will be removed any time in the near future either.

So, that leaves us wondering how did the underlying economic and inflation backdrops look heading into this period of uncertainty. Investors just received their first glimpse of Q1 activity, where Q1 real GDP fell by a modest -0.3%, the first contraction since 2022. However, the lion’s share of the negative result was due to a 41% surge in imports (a negative contributor in the GDP calculation process), no doubt a front-running ahead of tariffs that will more than likely not be repeated. In fact, real final sales to private domestic purchasers (the underlying current of the economy that excludes trade, inventories and government spending) actually rose by a relatively healthy +3.0%.

That brings us to more recent data—more importantly, data that contained post-Liberation Day potential early effects. The Fed will have a challenging task sifting through the new data to determine what, if any, effects the tariff news is having on the broader economy. Powell & Co. will no doubt be focusing on their dual mandate of employment and inflation to determine how to respond. The April Jobs report began that process, and the results continued to show a resilient labor market setting.

Post-Liberation Day, Fed guidance has been emphasizing that the economy/labor market setting is fine, and that allows the Fed to take a deliberate approach to monetary policy. In other words, the theme remains the same: i.e., the voting members are data-dependent and can let the data “come to them.”

Don’t forget quantitative tightening (QT). The policy makers have already tapered their pace of balance sheet reduction, so it appears it is now a question of when, not if, to end QT in the months ahead.

The Bottom Line

Unless we get some really “bad” economic/labor market numbers over the next six weeks or so, the aforementioned April employment report will probably knock the Fed from cutting rates at the June FOMC meeting. If that proves to be the case, it would mean the markets will be halfway through the annual FOMC meeting cycle without any rate changes, with only four gatherings remaining for the second half of 2025.

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Originally Posted on May 7, 2025 – Fed Watch: Still Waiting