 Hi there, Anthony here and hope you're having a great weekend. Just wanted to bring you the full recording of the Amplify Live coverage that we did for the FFMC meeting earlier this week, the March 2021 meeting, because I think it serves as a really good insight as to how does a global macro trader approach an event like a major central bank decision. So within this session, it's quite long, but I think there's a lot of value there in different areas. The preview about how to break down a complex event like a monetary policy decision into something more definable and into an actionable trading plan. Then the live analysis and execution for Tim on the trading side and then the kind of post analysis and then into the press conference as well. So a good example of seeing, you know, how do you genuinely look to try and tackle and trade the news in real time? Any questions at all for either Tim or myself, then just feel free to leave a comment below. Absolutely happy to help if I can otherwise. Enjoy the session. All right, hope everyone's doing well. Wednesday, 17th March, we've got the latest FFMC, the Federal Library Market Committee meeting coming up. And yeah, a little bit of interest in this one, particularly because of the eight Fed meetings. Just a reminder that we get per year. This is one of the alternate ones. So on a quarterly calendar basis, March, June, Sep, Dec, where we get what they call the summary of economic projections, the SEP. And I'm going to show you what the SEP looks like, in fact, because I think it's good for you guys to see it so that other than just seeing headlines come down the tape, you kind of know, you know, where it's coming from. But overall, the main kind of context here with this meeting is that a few different things. And I'm going to I'm going to bring up part one, because kind of like the ECB format, the Fed follower, similar vein, where they have a statement released. In this case, we're going to get a six o'clock. Remember, it's normally seven because there's a time differential change for this week and next with the U.S. O'clock is changing before answer normally be seven, you get the statement. And this is what the statement looks like. And then the press conference follows half an hour later. So it'll be half six tonight. The statement here is pretty short. This is the uniform structure of which the statement follows. And it's very much a kind of recycled text that sees very minor alterations. But those alterations, of course, can be quite meaningful. As that then tells us what they feel about some of the key factors that are developing an economy. And subsequently, then we start to make assumptions about their future policy path. Now, the structure of this particular statement is always quite uniform. So the first paragraph is we're committed to use a range of tools to support the U.S. economy in this challenging time. This is quite a key point, though, because this is the mandate of the bank. Maximum employment and price stability goals. So maximum employment and generally then keeping inflation in check to that respect. And obviously it's the latter that's been challenged given rising inflation expectations on certain metrics. They are the highest they've been since around 2008. And we have seen the first screen shoots, if you like, of inflation starting to heat up a little bit and we're expecting that to happen more aggressively going forward. This is quite key as a focal point. But it's unlikely to change. We've heard many times from Powell and his colleagues about how they feel about the general status, which is policy is staying where it is. And so they're not going to comment on every twist and turn in the market. The yields have gone up, equities have softened. Like after that initial midi-tentrum, the market kind of had where equities are trading quite heavy on that initial breakout in yields about two weeks ago. If you think about it, yields are still higher, but equities have got over the hump now. And so the Fed deploying that kind of strategy of, look, just let the baby cry. It will sort itself out in the end. And so we're expecting that very much still this time round. Otherwise, here it's then about COVID-19. And actually, if you read this statement, don't forget this was back in January when the Fed had their previous meeting because again, it's not every single month. It's eight in a year, so it's a little bit longer. They said then the pandemic is causing tremendous human economic hardship across the US around the world. The pace of recovery and economic activity and employment has moderated in recent months with weakness concentrated in sectors most adversely affected by the pandemic. We could demand early declines in all prices have been holding down consumer price inflation, so on and so forth. The idea here being when you read that paragraph, it sounds very downbeat considering where we are now in the middle of March. Now, that's fast forwarding what the best part of six, seven weeks. And if you actually think about it, the COVID rate cases have declined, deaths have declined, vaccinations have picked up. And if anything, the US are outperforming now the UK in that regard in terms of the amount of vaccines administered and the rate they're doing that. And the economy generally is picking up as it's starting to reopen. And you've got a stimulus that's now appeared and being signed off and obviously into the system in terms of the checks now. So things have decidedly got more upbeat. So you probably would expect then some alteration here, just here and also in the press conference as well, where he's he's probably going to sound a little bit more optimistic than the last time out. The other stuff largely is going to remain probably unaltered and things like the interest rate. So the federal funds rate zero to 0.25 percent will remain unchanged. There's no way they're going to change that anytime soon. That's a conversation of many years down the line, which we'll talk about in a moment. And then in terms of their QE program, so 80 billion per month and agency, so mortgage backed securities, 40 billion. So this is the kind of 120 billion that they do every month. And that's going to remain the same for the time being. So as much as the markets become more optimistic, it hasn't got to the point yet where we're actually going to see significant tangible policy change. So this part should be the statement, some subtleties, perhaps slightly more optimistic is what the market will look for. The other thing we're going to get then is this. This is the summary of economic projections. So as I said, I wanted to show it to you so you can see what it looks like. So this is the actual report, 17 pages. But there's really one page in particular, which is this. This is the basically the the table that shows the real change in GDP, the unemployment rate, the PCEs and the core PCE numbers. So remember, when we talk about inflation, as much as the market is slightly obsessive over things like CPI, the Fed's preferred measure is core PCE. So that's why the inflation measures of PCE. And then you have arguably the most important one, which is, OK, given the outlook then for these measures of the economy, what does that subsequently end result mean for where interest rates will be? And what we're able to do then, if we skip down, this is the last dot plot matrix for rates that came out and how the dot plot works is then remember, we're now we're looking at the end of 2021, the end of 2022, the end of 2023 and in the long run. So each one of these dots ask the question of the Fed at the end of their two day meeting, what do you think rates should be at the end of each one of these years? And that allows us to draw, basically, crudely speaking, a line of the trajectory, steepness of rates moving higher as the anticipation is that the economy continues to grow, requiring higher rates in the future. And then this is what starts to come quite interesting from the discussion I had this morning with Sam, which is this is looking at Goldman Sachs's expectation of what these dots might look like. Now, the actual dots, this is kind of easier to look at because it's all side by side, kind of chronological left to right. When you look at the goldman's one, it's the same information. It's just represented a different visual way. So here, where are interest rates going to be the midpoint of that target range in the Fed? Well, it's going to be unchanged. There's no doubt about that. Are interest rates going to rise in 2022? Remember, you need the majority of these dots to move up to drag the median dot up in order to then have a base case that then that median line has become more steeper. And even if one more person shifts, there's no way that the median is going to move at that point. Then it gets to the end of 2023, and then it gets more interesting, of course, because this is what the actual dot plot looked like for 2023. So you can see there's an Uber hawk here who thinks that rates should go up multiple times. You know, you're talking the best part of three rate hikes by the end of 2023. This person is looking for slightly less than that, two and then one here. The idea being for those aforementioned reasons of how the economy has performed better or is in a better situation now, more optimistic outlook now than where we were back in December when these projections for last due is how many of these guys down here move up a notch? And does that drag then the consequent kind of pink or red dot up as Goldman suggests indicative of one rate hike to be executed before the end of 2023? That obviously would be a difference from currently interest rates are seen on hold throughout the next two years, essentially. So that would be hawkish if that median dot moves up. So this will be quite important. And when you go back to that table, the other thing that the market will have to chew over here is for 2021, the expectation on the median basis was the GDP would move up to 4.2 and then subsequently 3.2. So if you look at it, GDP spectacularly returns and then softens, but that makes sense, right? We're coming out of a very low base of the pandemic and so we're gonna be rampant out of the pandemic and we're gonna grow fast in the US over Q2, Q3. And then generally as the years go on, the economy will keep growing, but at a slower pace because you start to remove the accommodative nature of policy, both monetary and fiscal. Unemployment rate. So what we're looking at here changing GDP, we might see these revised up for that optimism, unemployment down and inflation up. To what degree and extremity that they see say inflation moving, if they're saying, well, we see core PC very high now, well, that's gonna constitute more likely then the evidence that there's gonna be people who would want rates higher, nearer in the future. And so therefore you can make the assumption that dot plots probably being brought forward and therefore would be a hawkish outcome. So all of these numbers are quite important. I think from an actionable point of view that will make life easier, you're just looking for that singular headline when the squawk comes on. Where is that median dot plot for 2023? Is it one indicative of one rate hike? If it is, the market might have an initial immediate knee jerk hawkish reaction. That would be dollar strength, higher yields, T notes down, equities lower, gold lower. However, how sustainable that is, you'd really wanna see the composition of these forecasts to see how aggressive do they see the economy moving and how many of the, what is the actual combination of those dots, these dots here. So I know that's quite a lot to digest but hopefully that kind of summarizes it. The other things here then, there's a really good crib sheet. He's only just tweeted this, so unfortunately I've not been able to share it but there's a few other things just to be aware of here. So not expecting any change in rates or QE, the dot plot key, of course, given what we've just discussed. There's a few other things though to be on the lookout for. SLR relief, this is basically this kind of supplementary leverage program that they've had where it was adopted in response to the COVID-19 situation to give relief for banks. But there's some expectation that that could be tweaked or does it get rolled over? As he's kind of stated here, there's mixed views and whether or not that would be extended. There may be a knee jerk towards higher treasury yields in the event it's not extended. So just think quite simply SLR relief as something that was put on as a bit of a bandaid during COVID to support companies to have access to credit and removal of the bandaid might be deemed as hawkish because you're taking off one of the layers of policy tools outside of the traditional ones. You've then got the interest on reserves. This is another thing that some people have looked at. It's more of a technical adjustment about how the Fed manage their federal funds rate. And there's basically a reserve rate that sits slightly independent of the federal funds rate that if moved can increase or narrow the gap which basically forces then people at either a higher or lower extremity of the federal funds band of zero to 0.25%. To be quite honest, I wouldn't get too bogged down in that if you're trading this intraday it's more of a technical feature than something more meaningful. The SLR one could be a little bit more meat to the move if they do not roll that over. And then I think the main show here is gonna be on the projections and the median dot plot on rates with the subsequent kind of optimism or not on the other factors like unemployment, PC and so on and so forth. The power presser then is a separate matter. We'll kind of talk about that closer to the press conference happening. So I'm not gonna go into that at the moment other than saying the typical routine here for the Fed is that if there is a hawkish kind of median dot plot the market might react in that fashion I've described power will be conscious to come out and soothe market concerns about this being overtly the Fed responding to higher yields and inflation and he'll probably sound quite dovish to kind of net off neutralize any initial knee jerk over interpretation the market might make. If it's the opposite and the Fed just adopt which I think more probably likely the matter they just roll out the same kind of strategy still very accommodative. They're not looking to hike rates the median dot plot shifted a little bit but not enough to move or the voters have moved a little bit but not enough to move the actual median dot plot for rates in 2023 the market might see that as a bit of relief. Let's say they roll over the SLR program as well that's relief, you might get equities bid yields lower, tea notes take a bit of a pot, dollar weakness subsequent strength in some of the precious metals like gold and silver for example. So yeah, a lot to take in there. My main advice would be with these Federal Reserve events if you are new to them, you don't have to trade them but if you ever are gonna trade one of these events you gotta be in it, you've gotta either prepare for it review it, go through the whole kind of semantics and then do it multiple times but if you are gearing up for this and you are gonna trade it and you're at that point in your expertise and just remember the kind of golden rule is you don't have to get stuck in immediately the opportunities might be in the periods thereafter and normally you get an initial explosive reaction you then get the subsequent reactions which are like two to 15 minutes then generally that fast money reactionary effect fizzles out as people then wait for the press conference. The more surprising statement the more interest actually there is in the press conference in that respect normally speaking but I'll leave it at that for me so if Tim wants to come on and add his take then yeah, I'll hand it over to you Tim. Cheers. Well, very thorough rundown and thank you very much. As always, these things are pretty much as clear as mud to most people so always great to get a sobering chat ahead of these events. Yeah, I mean I'll share on my screen and we'll have a little bounce around the key markets here to look out for on this. Looking at, you know, we got Nasdaq, Russell, S&P actually going clockwise top left around Nasdaq, Russell, Dixie, T-Notes, Dow and S&P 500. So really you're looking at weekly bars on most of these markets. Here's the Nasdaq. You know, it's finding it, you know, hard times to get above the 13, 125 this week so far. You know, it's, well, it's found a bit of support on the 20 EMA and the 10 EMA which a couple of the guys were trading off of those levels yesterday and today even shorting it off the top as well overnight, really nice trades. But you know, I just look, I can't stand in front of these markets and short them, it's very hard to see anything but further upside in these markets. I think if we do move to the downside, I think you're going to find some support 12, 459s on the Nasdaq. We can, you know, it'll be zoomed in on a 30 minute bar charts for all of the, once we get going here. The Russell, yeah, the Russell, you know, very elevated, it's really been outperforming, I suppose it appears since we've seen the June lows here. So if we just kind of quick bounce into this, I mean, you know, talk about being parabolic. I mean, that, it looks so parabolic, I think it's about to fall over backwards or, you know, this way. So, I mean, I wouldn't be looking to short any of these either, you know, with this amount of stimulus, I think, you know, Powell is going to start the speech today by saying, hello, welcome to Groundhog Day. You know, they are going to remain accommodative. You know, I think the DAO has been the real outperformer, though, when it comes to, you know, getting on nice longs and just seeing day on day compound growth there and big days, you know, like yesterday, fantastic day on the DAO with the Nasdaq largely underperforming this week, as we've seen. So, you know, we're at a huge fib level here for the DAO, 32704s. This is a fib extension tool I'm using here. So, you know, it could, you know, because we come up quite well in the DAO, those blue-chip 30 companies, I think it could be time for, you know, a little bit off the top in the DAO even. And if that's coming down, I don't see the other markets going anywhere else. T-notes, of course, the question on everyone's lips, these past, well, one, two, three, four, well, two, one and a half months here, you know, breaching the 131.25s on the downside, this is, you know, being indicative of a 1.67 on the yield, given up support here, which was the low of the week of the 16th of March. It's pretty significant, because if we do run down here to find the support from, well, was this the 3rd of September, 2019, well, this is going to be indicative of, you know, headed more towards that 2% whole figure on the yield. So, you know, as always, I just recommend staying pretty fluid and not getting involved in the initial data hit and try to stay out of trouble. So that's really all I have. Any questions in? Yeah, Oliver, imagine if you did, you should. So for me, I mean, we've been having a lot of fun. Here's the general group of markets that we're looking at each day, much more busy sort of screen, but oil very supportive down here in the 3382s. It's going to be largely on phase by what goes on tonight. But you can see here the NASDAQ, the 10 and the 20 EMAs working off each other. So quite supported here so far in the NASDAQ. But look below here on the S&P, these are all 30-minute charts you're looking at. The S&P, to me, it does have a bit more downside before we could even think about getting back up to what is going to be that 4,000 level up here. So this is really the shape of the market. And yeah, that's really it from me. Cool, good stuff. Thanks, Tim. So we've got two minutes now. What I'll try to do as well, Tim, is I'll probably keep the recording going to about quarter past, and then we'll restart it when the presser starts to try and keep the recording as effective as possible as well. So people can use it for future reference. Let me just see if the squawk is going to work today. Yep. One of the main rules here for people if you are new to these events is as I've kind of talked through, there's quite a lot of information coming out. And so do be mindful of that, that there is a lot to interpret. And often it is quite convoluted what they're saying. You've got to read between the lines a little bit. I will grab a statement by statement, could Parison and share it with you guys just a minute or two straight after, so you can see the type of language change. Yeah, but if it is complicated, if it is multifaceted, just remember, it's probably going to be more noisy and then the opportunities might come in the period thereafter, give it a few minutes. So obviously we'll shout out, point out anything that sticks out. Yeah, so just under 40 seconds now coming up, squawk is live. Yeah, I mean, if we do get a surprise on this, I mean, I'm going to be hands off and I'd rather be fading a huge outside move than trying to jump on a freight train. So, you know, let me switch back here. All right. 10 seconds. Rates unchanged, IOER unchanged as well. Rates unchanged, IOER unchanged. We'll continue as a person who's at the 120 billion pace, vote unanimous. Repeats guidance on rates. Current federal funds rate will be appropriate until labor market has. So 2023 median dot unchanged. The 2023 median dot is unchanged. Just stance if appropriate. Inflation continues to one below 2%. And it looks like the median for 2020 median dot but it looks unchanged over here. Yeah, that's what we've created. We've got initial dollar snap lower. So that was that what we were looking for was, where was that median? And it's remained unchanged. So dollar weakness, major pairs, popping euro cable highs, gold highs, equity high. So again, yeah, Tim, just to quiet him down for a minute. This is exactly the scenario we were talking about. Emphasis on the median, it hasn't changed. So some more of them have moved to the idea of lifting but the median hasn't been enough to move the median. So you're getting an initial dovish reaction here. Dollar down, yields down, equities bid, pairs bid, gold lifting on the back of the dollar weakness. So just going to have a look, see what the other details are here. That IOER was unchanged as well. So that kind of fuels it a little further as well. I haven't kind of tweaked that technical tool. Yeah, the main point though, the Fed median dot shows a hold through 2023. So it's an unwinding of those kind of hawkish bets, chiefly led by Goldman's of course, who are pumping that view. Yeah, euro through now the high that was printed on yesterday, late morning in Europe, just had a bit of a breakthrough there. I know Tim's concentrating now. So I'll show my screen on my charts for a moment just to run through some of them. Just, yeah, having a gold just coming up to the top end of that near-term range, just having a little tussle there, initially running up to around the R1, equities, well bid, the NASDAQ just coming up to an area that's quite interesting here. Don't just make this chart bigger. Just got this rectangle from earlier, which was that previous high that we had back on the 11th, so what Thursday last week, and then some support area to the price activity that was seen in the early hours of this morning, the futures, so just finding a bit of resistance there on this push higher. Oil as Tim was kind of alluding to is a little bit lesser sensitive, but certainly the dollar movement, just seeing a little bit of a push on the upside, but resistance being found at around the 6460 area, which was the previous high that we've seen earlier this afternoon, and a respected area of price over the last two days. So one of the things I'd say here, Tim, is that this is as I was saying, this is my view playing out. And so this to me is a function of market mispricing over estimating a hawkish development. So by saying that, that's why you're not getting follow through. That's why the dollar's just not getting steamrolled and Euro's just not forever going bid and you're getting a bit of a pullback. This is Powell doing what Tim said, him saying, it's Groundhog Day. And this is a function of the market. If you look where market prices are now, we're right back to where we began. Nothing news happened. All that's happened is you flushed out all these people who were looking for that hawkish side. They've had to get out of that trade and now the market snapped back and it's like we move on at this point. So it's a very quick move. Doesn't constitute then a kind of real fundamental development. It's more the mechanic of market expectations being misaligned than anything. I think that's what explains the pullback here. But yeah, Tim, I don't know if you wanna add anything. I'm gonna have a little skim through the piece. Sure, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, really, these markets just explosive move up on NASDAQ, S&P, Dow. And really, it's just a little too far too fast. I mean, gold, yeah, I mean, gold's up to 17.39s as well is pretty significant area. But I mean, the buyers are gonna have to keep going on that level for gold to really put in some decent gains for the next couple of weeks. Otherwise, we can easily sell off the 70.39s and get to go short down to like 17.14s, but the buyers will pick it up from there again. So yeah, the mispricing of the markets, we were talking about this earlier today in that, technicals, fundamentals, we really just as traders try to capitalize on markets when they just get temporarily overvalued or undervalued and then we try and trade them back to normal valuation. And so you're seeing pretty much all of these moves reversed at least 50%, I mean, maybe, yeah, pretty much 50% on all of them right now. So give it a few more minutes and they're probably gonna be back right where they started, which is usually the case. But yeah, everyone's piling those stimulus checks into these markets is very hard to try and it's just short in front of all that, you know. I'm just gonna, I've just updated the Discord room with the side-by-side statement if people do wanna see just the differences and I'm gonna put the new dots and the table, everything. So it's there if people need it. I'm just gonna take a minute or two just to have a look over these. So yeah, the NASDAQ printed up into that 13125s, quite a key level. You know, if you're sitting anywhere with limit orders, anywhere near market coming into these events, I mean, you're gonna get absolutely wiped out. You know, you'll get filled and stopped faster than you can see, you know, you just really wanna be trying to get on board and maybe fade a couple of these moves to be honest. And, you know, nine times out of 10, you don't get a sustained parabolic move, especially, you know, on an FOMC like this where there's, you know, a 90 or there's a 0.02% chance that they're gonna mess with rates at all. So it's kind of a bit of a layup in that sense. Gold holding on the highs. Okay, now they're pushing up a little bit more on this move. I think the S&P is largely just not, it's not got it in it to get back to that prior all-time high, 39, 59s. Right now, I think, yes, for me, we're gonna have to print down to 39, 11s before we print the 4,000s. NASDAQ actually, really nice short there on 13110s, 13110s, which we've been looking at today. We were looking at that in the room. In fact, I think Charlie, or Charlie or Joe, I think took that trade earlier on. Just didn't make it up to the 110s. I think oil here taking a little bit of a bit out of it, but, you know, it's just availing of that cheaper dollar, to be honest. So, you know, nothing revolutionary happening there. Cable finding support as well on the dollar, of course, but I think I do like cable on it. It's pretty much on us loads of day. Actually, we were looking at those longs in the room. So, you know, healthily on-site in that trade right now. And you could be forgiven for actually saying that cable's forming a lovely bull flag on the 30 minute. So it's about this time that Anthony sends a quick note to his girlfriend, Christine Lagarde, and says, what do you reckon, Christine? This is just classic central banking, right? Ignore the market, do what you need to do. And the market will react in an initial knee-jerk, but you're just doing what you said you were always going to do. How clear do you need to be? I mean, I saw someone criticising Powell earlier in an article in Bloomberg, and they were saying their whole core emphasis was, if you're having to repeat yourself a number of times, then what you're saying is wrong. That was just the theory this guy was saying. And I'm saying, that's baloney. It's like, ignore the market. Like, you do your thing and the market, you have to fall in line. You have to be like the master and the apprentice or like the father and the son relationship. You cannot let the market dictate your actions. So I think Powell's just done, this is what experience tells me and why I have to view going in, that he's just gonna, I think it's a little bit much to think that they're gonna be talking about hiking rates in 2023. Just give me one second and I'll bring up some visual cue that will help. I mean, it's kind of surprising that people, that the market is surprised by, as you were saying, him just doing what he said he was gonna do. Yeah, it's strange. We saw a little bit of this with the ECB and actually, well, last week with Christine and the market, she controlled that very well. The market stayed, practically didn't move at all over the whole speech. You know, whereas these US markets, it's just too many commentators either side of it, I think. All right, this dollar is now dropping off pretty steepish to be honest. I don't fancy any trades here now, unfortunately. Yeah, just gonna, this is the dot plots. Perhaps it makes it a little easier to see the context. There's the what Goldman's were looking for and that's actually the composition of the dots as they came out. So if you look at it, in order to move the median, Goldman's were looking for 11 people, basically, to then jump ship and start moving up, being that their view of the rates are gonna go up and in fact, there's only seven. And so the seven not enough to pull up the median, obviously. So yeah, maybe there you can see it a bit more clearly, but yeah, I absolutely think it's just a case of markets misaligning, not listening to the fed. Kind of like the whole idea about inflation, panic, rotation, sell stocks, and here we are we're three weeks down the line from people thinking this is the beginning of the correction of the all-time highs and we're at all-time highs. So and then as that, as you said, is outperformed in terms of some of the recent sessions. So it'd be an interesting one, obviously, to discuss with peers on the podcast on Friday, see where we're at at that point. So the move is quite sustained now actually is back up on the highs. I think the dollar is in a rag order here. I think that's a long way to go. I mean, look, Anthony about, and I, well, more me having this conversation with myself that if they're printing 24 seven dollar reduce, why is the dollar just doing nothing but going up? And I'm quite happy to see this dollar tanking down now to be honest. So let's talk about press conference. What does this mean for the press conference? So let's think this through. So the markets have this response. He's done what he said he's going to do. So overall, I don't know. I think he would have had more to justify if there was a hawkish development in those dot plots and there hasn't been, because then the market would want some reassurance about how quickly are they going to look to adjust rates in the future and so on. If they're already feeling bullish enough to make that change, then it's like, okay, we need now more details about your thresholds, for example, that hasn't happened. And for me then, I don't know. I mean, look, it comes out. I can't see how he can sound hawkish. I think he's got reason to sound optimistic about the current conditions and so on. But I don't know, perhaps we do just power on here because I don't see much for him to say to talk this move down when he hasn't actually done anything. He's got nothing to talk down that he's done. As I said, it's the markets that have got a little bit apprehensive perhaps on the whole notion about tightening on the back of yields and inflation when, as he said, we're a long way off that even happening. So yeah, I'm kind of feeling at the moment, my bias would be that there could be some legs in this move in the same direction or play that we've had so far. And inflation? I haven't seen it yet. So let's have a look at the inflation. As much as I want to. Yeah, let's have a look at the actual change here. So let's, well, we've got time. Let's have a quick run through with the actual metrics on that side. So let me share the screen. So core PCE, they've revised up 0.1, 2021, 0.1, 2022, and it's the same for 2023. So they're not panicking about inflation here. I mean, the revision is absolutely marginal at best. So this is what underpins then probably accentuates the dubbish reaction. The unemployment rate, they see it dropping quite aggressively five, 4.2 from five and a half, 4.6. And in GDP, they bumped up by 0.2 on both 21, 22, and then it fades a little bit in 23. So yeah, probably the interesting one is that there's fairly benign change in inflation. They've already marginally lifted it. But again, in June, I think that in the June projections, which the next one, that core PCE is gonna go it's gonna jump aggressively. We're just not at that point yet, I don't think, to really see those kind of more meaningful revisions to these forecasts. Yeah, the inflation is coming. It just hasn't arrived yet in the extremity that I think the market was just a bit early in some of those initial moves a few weeks ago. But yeah, and then when we get to June, as I was talking about briefing this morning, June gets interesting because at that point, when are we gonna start tapering? When are we gonna start just easing off the gas of the pandemic response now that the economy is firing on all cylinders? And that then brings an interesting juncture for the market and the Fed, which is how did I tiptoe around easy and off stimulus? Wait, so he's waiting for above 3% inflation, right? That's the record. Yeah, they're not gonna panic until it's in excess of that. So you've got a long way to run until we get to that point, hence the reason why I think right now, it's holding back to. So technically there was just another sort of impulse there onto new highs or trying to attempt again on the new highs on the move. And it's just sort of fading back a wee bit here now. I like the shorts 39.59 on the S&P here prior all time high. We'll leave the recording running. I mean, we've already got 10 until the press begins. But if anyone's got any questions while we're on the call just far away, you got the chat and the Q&A. Yeah, Pa went saying the dot plots look like an old arcade game. The dot plots get criticized a lot. And actually you should ask Pierce Curran about what he thinks about the dot plots. He absolutely hates them. And the reason for that is they're almost always wrong. I mean, trying to say where interest rates will be three years time. I mean, guess what? There was a pandemic that happened. Imagine what the fed dot plots looked like in December of 2019. Did they foresee a pandemic happening? Of course they didn't. So the dot plots are just trying to pin down a rate specifically to the T and then try to adjust that over a median, I think is questionable. Pierce is at the view that it's basically not worse the paper it's written on. But for a trader, that doesn't matter. That's your view on the policy tool itself. As a trader, this is what traders look at. And as we've just seen, this is what they base, this is what the market reacts on and what traders will base their decisions on to trade. So it is important in that extent. But this is why the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the RBA, the ECB, none of them have dot plots. This is a fed thing. And it has come up for a potential review on a few occasions where people have tried to force a review of whether it is a viable tool to maintain, but it is for the moment. I remember trading on one firm where, before every FOMC, to be like 10 traders in a room, we'd have like a pre-game meeting and it was like the most senior trader in the room would be like, get out the dot plot chart and they'd just be like, I would just glaze over. Cause I just thought, you know, really a lot of things are gonna move here. And yeah, you know, there is a lot of focus on the dot plot, but I just, I never kind of synced in with it, to be honest. I mean, I like the forward guidance. I like to have that situational awareness of what other people are looking at, but it's kind of an untradable thing. Here's a kind of reference of what it looks like when you're seeing the news come out. So this is what I was kind of saying is that the main thing. See, so when you look at Bloomberg's new scroll, these are all the headlines, they all drop out, but the red ones are the asterisks that are highlighted at what we call stickies. And so when all the headlines drop down, they drop down in a chronological order, but the stickies stick at the top of the screen. So you can clearly see them. And as I was kind of suggesting in the preview, the market is just looking for this statement here. Fed keeps rates near zero, medium dot plot shows on hold through 2023. That's the initiation of the move we saw at the turn of six o'clock. There was that one singular headline there. So as Tim was saying, I think the dot plots and the complexity of monetary policy can be inappropriately talked about by analysts to overcomplicate. My job is to say to you guys before, look out for that comment. If it says through, it's dovish. If it says in, it's hawkish. Through means this, in means that. And that's a game plan then. And then it's like, okay, what constitutes then an extension of the knee jerk? That's then conversation too. And that's what you're trying to aim for, I think when you're trading. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, I know I'm head of market analysis, but I'm more basically someone who understands what these analysts are saying. And I break it down into trader talk because economists and analysts don't talk in trader terms. And then my job has always been as like the middleman to just take the in depth research and break it down into a definable point. And that's the kind of lesson that I'd want any new trader to take away is to do a similar thing. A couple of questions in here. What's the bottom for Euro bond? Euro bond? The bonds, yeah, okay. The bottom line for the bonds, yeah, I was actually looking at, I was buying this twice today. Do, do, do, do, do, let me see what I can see here. And I think we've seen the low for the day on the bonds, to be honest, I think I'd be a buyer on 170, spot 84s if we were to get down there. Even 170s, spot 80s, I think, you know, the really nice buying down there on the bonds for sure. But we're not going to get there today, no way. Yeah, I think that's it on the bonds. I wouldn't be trading this on the, are the trading the bond over this, to be honest? That's a bit too indirect a market. I mean, I totally have, you know, all the respect in the world for taking the indirect trade over an event such as this. But I think the bonds are a little too indirect here. It's, you know, it drives its own car. You know, you have a divergence, a clear divergence between the risk story in Europe versus the risk story in the US now. It literally couldn't be any more divergent than it is, given that we're going into further lockdowns again now, wave three, serious wave three now in Europe. Well, you know, it's spring break in Cabo San Luca in the US and yeah, you know, so I think while both of these bonds are dropping and the yields are rising, I think the question, the better question would be, you know, where is the lower bound for T-notes? But the yields are gonna just continue to rise over the next. Right, so this is, that is a really important point, that last one, which is just to make it crystal. T-notes have popped up here, but T-notes are gonna move down beyond today. And the reason for that is the yields are gonna move higher from where they are today in the future. The function of this spike is that of the market's mis-expectation pricing positioning of looking for something a little bit more hawkish than what we just see materialize. And so the trade is, I mean, you know, for someone like Tim, I'm sure, if you were looking at T-notes, so I know Will favours T-notes sometimes because it's like a slightly, can be slightly slower out the gate, just given its sensitivity to say more volatile products. You're out of pivot or on the push technically, but tracking the momentum on the ladder and the order flow, but then you're probably out at that high anyway, because it's a short-term missed price trade that you're in, you know, so fast money move, you're out. And at the end of the day, as Tim was saying, yours are going to move higher, inflation is going to go up and rates are going to go up. So T-notes are going to go down in terms of a medium long-term trend here. Yeah, so I always get a sense of people are like trying to get into these trades that they think they can hold for weeks or days. And it depends on your risk profile, but they're not like, you know, getting on along on the data here, bar-like goals, for example, the S&P and the Dow are going to wipe out your, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 tick stop by the close of business on Friday, maybe by the close of business today. So, you know, you got to be aware that you get this initial volatility of repricing of the markets, but then generally when it comes into the speech, it's kind of come back to where it is. And you see this, like especially with ECB speeches, you know, or something like DOE, for example, is an absolute classic for this, you know, within 15 minutes, 70% of the time we're back where we started, maybe not 70, but something closer to that. So yeah, for like Will or myself, we're like, you know, and we had a good session of me doing this today. I was calling some trades I was in and then I was like narrating. I was like, okay, I'm out of that now or I've scaled out here or I'm flat and now I'm back in and like I was in oil three times, but I'm managing it very quickly. I'm not kind of going off, having a snack, coming back, checking on the position. Those type of trades, I'd say constitute about 20% of the trades I do. 80% of the trades I do, I'm in, I'm out, I'm in, I'm out, and then I'm done. And they don't, it could all happen within like 15 seconds, two minutes. So an important point to make there just before we go into the press conference, Tim, if you want to find the link and have that audio playing, but the point I'd want to make there is that there's someone who's missing in action tonight and that is Sam North because this type of event driven volatility is not conducive of his trading style. I think a really important point to make there is that these kind of macro headline news driven fixed events, these are almost like optimal for someone like Will or Tim, but for someone like Sam, it's almost worth avoiding actually and then just coming in the next day seeing how the land lies and then taking action accordingly over one of those more kind of long play structured trades technically and slow burner. The point being there is, I guess exploit your and leverage your strengths and know your style and be true to that. And equally so for Tim here and equally so for the fact that Sam is missing in action says it all really for the type of trader that he is and him being disciplined to that in that extent, but I'll put my charts back up the press conference just about to start. Here he is, he's just come out now, face of beyond the right with four. Sure. Looking back, it was clear that addressing a fast moving global pandemic would be plainly and primarily the realm of healthcare providers and experts. And we are grateful to them and to all the essential workers for their service and sacrifice. The danger to the US economy was also clear. Congress provided by far the fastest and largest response to any post-war economic downturn offering fiscal support for households, businesses, healthcare providers and state and local governments. Here at the Federal Reserve, we rapidly deployed our full range of tools to provide relief and stability to ensure that the recovery will be as strong as possible and to limit lasting damage to the economy. We are strongly committed to achieving the monetary policy goals that Congress has given us maximum employment and price stability. Economic fallout has been real and widespread. But with the benefit of perspective, we can say that some of the very worst economic outcomes have been avoided by swift and forceful action from Congress, from across government and in cities and towns across the country. More people held on to their jobs, more businesses kept their doors open and more incomes were saved as a result of these swift and forceful policy actions. And while we welcome these positive developments, no one should be complacent. At the Fed, we will continue to provide the economy the support that it needs for as long as it takes. Today, the FOMC kept interest rates near zero and maintained our sizable asset purchases. These measures, along with our strong guidance on interest rates and on our balance sheet, will ensure that monetary policy will continue to deliver powerful support to the economy until the recovery is complete. The path of the economy continues to depend significantly on the course of the virus and the measures undertaken to control its spread. Since January, the number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths has fallen and ongoing vaccinations offer hope for a return to more normal conditions later this year. In the meantime, continued observance of social distancing measures and wearing masks will help us reach that goal as soon as possible. The economic recovery remains uneven and far from complete and the path ahead remains uncertain. Following the moderation in the pace of the recovery that began toward the end of last year, indicators of economic activity and employment have turned up recently, although the sectors of the economy most adversely affected by the resurgence of the virus and by greater social distancing remain weak. Household spending on goods has risen notably so far this year. In contrast, household spending on services remains low, especially in services that typically require people to gather closely, including travel and hospitality. The housing sector has more than fully recovered from the downturn while business investment and manufacturing production have also picked up. The overall recovery in economic activity since last spring is due importantly to unprecedented fiscal and monetary policy actions which have provided essential support to households, businesses and communities. The recovery has progressed more quickly than generally expected and forecasts from FOMC participants for economic growth this year have been revised up notably since our December summary of economic projections. In commenting on the stronger outlook, participants noted progress on vaccinations as well as recent fiscal policy. As with overall economic activity, conditions in the labor market have turned up recently. Employment rose by 379,000 in February as the leisure and hospitality sector recouped about two thirds of the jobs that were lost in December and January. Nonetheless, employment in this sector is more than 3 million below its level at the onset of the pandemic. For the economy as a whole, employment is 9.5 million below its pre-pandemic level. The unemployment rate remains elevated at 6.2% in February. This figure understates the shortfall in employment, particularly as participation in the labor market remains notably below pre-pandemic levels. Looking ahead, FOMC participants project the unemployment rate to continue to decline. The median projection is 4.5% at the end of this year and moves down to 3.5% by the end of 2023. The economic downturn has not fallen equally on all Americans and those least able to shoulder the burden have been the hardest hit. In particular, the high level of joblessness has been especially severe for lower wage workers in the service sector and for African Americans and Hispanics. The economic dislocation has upended many lives and created great uncertainty about the future. Overall inflation remains below our 2% longer run objective. Over the next few months, 12 month measures of inflation will move up as the very low readings from March and April of last year fall out of the calculation. Beyond these base effects, we could also see upward pressure on prices if spending rebounds quickly as the economy continues to reopen, particularly if supply bottlenecks limit how quickly production can respond in the near term. However, these one time increases in prices are likely to have only transient effects on inflation. The median inflation projection of FOMC participants is 2.4% this year and declines to 2% next year before moving back up by the end of 2023. The Fed's response to this crisis has been guided by our mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices for the American people, along with our responsibilities to promote the stability of the financial system. As we say in our statement on longer run goals and monetary policy strategy, we view maximum employment as a broad based and inclusive goal. Our ability to achieve maximum employment in the years ahead depends importantly on having longer-term inflation expectations well-anchored at 2%. I just see the euro breaking above that. As the committee reiterated in today's policy statement with inflation running persistently below 2%, we will aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2% for some time so that inflation averages 2% over time and longer-term inflation. I'm just trying to squeeze in as many mentions of inflation as we can here, Gold, Lovner policy, until these employment and inflation outcomes are achieved. I think Gold's got a bit of room here on the other side. We continue to expect it will be appropriate to make 0 to 1.25% to reach around 45.5 until labor market conditions have reached levels consistent with the committee's assessment of maximum employment. And inflation has risen to 2% and is on track to moderately exceed 2% for some time. I would note that a transitory rise in inflation above 2% as seems likely to occur this year would not meet this standard. In addition, we will continue to increase our holdings of treasury securities by at least $80 billion per month and of agency mortgage-backed securities by at least $40 billion per month until substantial further progress has been made toward our maximum employment and price stability goals. The increase in our balance sheet since last March has materially eased financial conditions and is providing substantial support to the economy. The economy is a long way from our employment and inflation goals and it is likely to take some time for substantial further progress to be achieved. Our forward guidance for the federal funds rate along with our balance sheet guidance will ensure that the stance of monetary policy remains highly accommodative as the recovery progresses. Our guidance is outcome-based and ties the path of the federal funds rate and the balance sheet to progress toward reaching our employment and inflation goals. Overall, our interest rate and balance sheet tools are providing powerful support to the economy and will continue to do so. To conclude, we understand that our actions affect communities, families and businesses across the country. Everything we do is in service to our public mission. We are committed to using our full range of tools to support the economy and to help assure that the recovery from this difficult period will be as robust as possible. Thank you, I look forward to your question. All right, the opening statement done. Q&A is kicking off so far. He's not really saying I think that would deviate from him just kind of repeating what he said before. So the market just continuing with the initial trends, yields lower, gold up, stocks up, all the weakness. Could you talk us through how the forecast for 2021 map into the substantial further progress definition, 2.4% inflation, I understand that's considered transitory. That still seems like some progress there, 4.5% unemployment. Is it time to start talking about, talking about tapering yet? Not yet. So as you pointed out, we've said that we would continue asset purchases at this pace until we see substantial further progress. And that's actual progress, not forecast progress. So, and that's a difference from our past approach. So, and what we mean by that is pretty straightforward. It is, we'll want to see that the labor markets have moved, labor market conditions have made substantial progress toward maximum employment and inflation has made substantial progress toward the 2% goal. That's what we're going to want to see. Now, that obviously includes an element of judgment. And when we see, we'll be carefully looking ahead. We also understand that we will want to provide as much advanced notice of any potential taper as possible. So when we see that we're on track, when we see actual data coming in that suggests that we're on track to perhaps achieve substantial further progress, then we'll say so. And we'll say so well in advance of any decision to actually taper. If I could follow up on that, they shifted the dots. Why wouldn't that suggest a weakening of the commitment here? And a whole lot of people shifted into 2022, it seems. I don't see that at all. You know, we have a range of perspectives on the committee. I welcome that. And, you know, we have, we debate things, we discuss things and we always, who's this guy? Get this guy off the press conference solution. He's getting confused between 2023 and 2022. The guy asking the question is not showing a rate increase a waste of time during this forecast period. And, you know, as data improved, but keeping on equities now, the NASDAQ's just testing on its pivot. You would expect so far. I mean that comment, I said it's now is not the time to start talking and tapering. It's kind of pushing back against the idea that the Fed needs to act about this rise and inflation expectations and so on. So at the moment, this is kind of what we were looking for. A continuation here, because he's not doing what markets want, which is to comment on more of the risks to the accommodation that they're providing. He's saying, we're going to continue doing this. We're not at that point yet. So equities now, the S&Ps just back above the initials blimp high that we had. And the NASDAQ's through pivot now, keeping on gold, that's at its next point of technical resistance as well. And the euro's at the 120 in the futures. Yeah, gold has 70, 58 in the sites there. I know it's a big way up, but... We'll talk about what you all are going to do this month, which I'm happy to hear an update if you have one, but just sort of more broadly, do you think long-term that the leverage ratio poses problems for implementing monetary policy at a time when the reserve supply is going to remain large and if so, do you think the changes to the leverage ratio, including the SLR, are the way to deal with that problem? Victoria, we'll have something to announce on that in coming days. And I'm not going to expound upon your questions. Why don't you why don't you ask another question if you'd like to, because that one I'm just going to say that works something in coming days. Sure, okay. Well, then I'll ask about unemployment. The unemployment rate is, you all have projections for the U6 rate, but you've also been really emphasizing the fact that that's not the only thing that you all are looking at. You're also looking at labor force participation and things like that. So are you all looking at ways of maybe adding to how you're projecting the unemployment rate to the summary of economic projections? Well, let me say, as we say, the daughter is getting smoked here. In monetary policy strategy, we look to a range of indicators on labor market. We never only looked at the unemployment rate, which is the only indicator of labor market outcomes that's in the SEP. We look at a very broad range. You hear us talk all the time about participation, about employment to population, which is the combination of the two, about different measures of unemployment. So it's wages, it's the job flows, it's, you know, all of those things are, they go into an assessment disparities of various groups. All that goes into an assessment of maximum employment. The, trying to incorporate all of that into the summary of economic projections would not be practical. You know, obviously the thing that we do include is just the unemployment rate and that's a very insufficient statistic. So it doesn't include a lot of other things that we do look at. And I wouldn't want to say that we're looking to include the other dozen things that we look at into the SEP. But at time, from time to time, we do look at adding different things. But I would just say the SEP is a, it's a summary. It's one device. It's not going to include all of the things that we look at. I think you know the things that we look at. Sorry Tim, I was just off the desk then, but yeah, SMP. So we're not actually looking actively at. We're testing close to the highs now, from yesterday and the R1. Thank you, Chris Rugeber, Associated Press. Thank you. The 10 years on that range high as well at the minute. The forecast overall, you're forecasting a very low unemployment rate next year. And in 2023, you have inflation or the Fed overall is in the SEP, forecasting inflation at or above 2% by 2023. Yet no rate hike in any of this forecast horizon. So is this telling us that to see a higher inflation rate than what's projected or do not, as you've been talking about, is the unemployment rate insufficient or what is this telling us about the Fed's reaction function that it seems you're meeting the Fed's dual mandate by 2023? Yet again, no rate hike expected. So I guess the first thing to say is that the SEP is not a committee forecast. It's not something we sit around and debate and discuss and approve and say, this represents our goal is gonna get crazy in a bit, it's just stepping into our two cable lovin' it. But since we don't debate it through discuss it would be hard for me to say why, exactly why each participant did what they were going to do. So it'd be worth not short here on the T-nauts. All I wanna say about this is that we've laid out what I think is very clear guidance on lift off. And it's really three things, labor market conditions that are consistent with our estimates of maximum employment. And as I mentioned, we consider a wide range of indicators in assessing labor market conditions, not just the unemployment rate inflation that has reached 2% and not just on a transitory basis and inflation that's on track to run moderately above 2% for some time. The first two of those three are very much database. The third does have a little bit of an element of expectations in it. So we are very much determined to implement this guidance in a robust way. It is the guidance that we chose carefully to implement our new framework. And to meet these standards, we'll need to see data as I mentioned. So what does this SEP really say? It says that we're committed to our framework and to the guidance we've provided to implement that framework. We will wait until the requirements set forth and that guidance are clearly met before considering a change in our policy rate. And the last thing I'll say is this, the state of the economy in two or three years is highly uncertain. And I wouldn't want to focus too much on the exact timing of a potential rate increase that far into the future. So that's how I would think about the SEP. Thank you. Paul Kearnan. Thank you, Chairman Powell. My question is twofold. How high are you comfortable letting inflation rise? There is some ambiguity in your new target, as you mentioned, expectations driven. And do you think that that ambiguity might cause markets to price in a lower tolerance for inflation than the Fed actually has thereby causing financial conditions to tighten prematurely? Is that a concern? Thanks. So we've said we'd like to see inflation run moderately above 2% for some time. And we've resisted basically, generally, the temptation to try to quantify that. Part of that just is talking about inflation is one thing. Actually having inflation run above 2% is the real thing. So over the years, we've talked about 2% inflation is the goal, but we haven't achieved it. So I would say we'd like to perform. That's what we'd really like to do is to get inflation moderately above 2%. I don't want to be too specific about what that means because I think it's hard to do that. And we haven't done it yet. When we're actually above 2%, we can do that. Look, I would say this, the fundamental change in our framework is... I must have heard them say that like five times. We're not going to preemptively make some forecasts for the most part. And we're going to wait to see actual data. And I think it will take people time to adjust to that and to adjust to that new practice. And the only way we can really build the credibility of that is by doing it. So that's how I would think about that. Thank you. That's an interesting point, the fact that, you know, the Fed have always been under their inflation target. I'm not sure about this. This is Matthew Boser with... And I want to see it. Before I really start to comment on it, just kind of what we were saying earlier, we're just a bit early in the road yet for them to really pay more detailed information about explicit nature of inflation thresholds because they've never actually been in an environment where that's been consistently hit for a long time. The questions now as a reference point do tend to get diluted a little bit in terms of quality. And he's kind of said majority of what he needs to say now with a lot of the responses. So after that little push-up we had in prices, we're just seeing that fade a little bit here across assets and act strategically technical level. So Tim was bang on with the call on the 10-year. You've seen a bit of reverse course, seven ticks off that initial high now from that range that we'd be looking at in the 10-year bottom right. Gold's still probably the more bullish setup of all of them in terms of it still sat there knocking on the highs. Gold's just getting started here. Yeah, the currency pairs, the cable, I've got that rectangle marked up, just finding some resistance around that double top from the price that we had from a Tuesday session and that coinciding with the pull-off of the 120 psychological and R2 in the Euro future, as you can see here.