The impending interest rate hike has been at the forefront of many investors' minds over the last year or so. Every six weeks, marketplace participants await comments from the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) meeting with bated breath. Language from those meetings is meticulously analyzed, and any strong wording regarding the progress of the U.S. economy usually is met with a downtick in stocks. Good news around economic indicators - such as employment - has almost become bad news, taken as a sign that rate tightening is in the not-too-distant future. The July FOMC meeting came and went with no change in interest rates as many were speculating at the beginning of the year. This caused a sigh of relief for the markets, with expectations for a hike pushed out to the September meeting (this publication goes to print before the Sept. 17 FOMC meeting) or beyond, with the Estimize community anticipating no rate increase on that date.
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