The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the part of the US Federal Reserve which decides on interest rates, will meet for the final time today and announce their interest rates decision tomorrow. It is widely expected that the Fed will increase interest rates by 25 basis points and a few weeks ago this meeting would have been a non-event. The situation has drastically changed as the Fed has to pick between a rock and a hard place, no matter how they decide it is likely to have a negative impact on the US Dollar.

After a two day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee or FOMC, the division of the US Federal Reserve which decided on interest rates, a 25 basis point increase in interest rates was announced. This was widely expected by market participants and marked the third 25 basis point interest rate hike in 2018. This took US interest rates to a lower bound rate of 2.00% and an upper bound rate of 2.25%. The interest rate on excess reserves was increased by 5 basis points from 1.95% to 2.00%.

Yesterday marked the first FOMC meeting chaired by Jerome Powell, the new US Federal Reserve Chief. As market participants and Fed watchers widely anticipated, he kicked of his first FOMC meeting with a 25 basis point interest rate increase to 1.75%. The Fed also confirmed that it wants to hike three times in 2018 while signalling that more interest rate hikes are expected in 2019 as well as 2020.

The last Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of the US Federal Reserve for the year 2017 will start today. All meetings last two days and the Federal Chairman will announce the results during a press conference after the meeting has been concluded. Many Fed watchers predict the outgoing Federal Chairwoman Janet Yellen will announce an interest rate increase of 25 basis points. This will leave the official Federal Funds Rate at an upper bound level of 1.50% and a lower bound level of 1.25%.

Minutes from the October 31st - November 1st US Federal Reserve meeting were released yesterday evening and the US Dollar as well as US equity markets were slightly disappointed by the overall tone of the text. Market watchers anticipated a more hawkish statement, or one that is in favor of increasing interest rates faster.

The Federal Reserve thinks it will be appropriate to raise interest rates “relatively soon,” according to minutes of its most recent meeting released Wednesday. This release covered the meeting that was held November 1-2, a week before the US election.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a committee within the Federal Reserve System, is charged under the US law with overseeing the nation's open market operations (i.e., the Fed's buying and selling of United States Treasury securities). This Federal Reserve committee makes key decisions about interest rates and the growth of the US money supply.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is the branch of the Federal Reserve Board that determines the direction of monetary policy.

So far the monthly reports on employment in the US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) are becoming more and more interesting. Last month, the figures exceeded even the wildest analytical predictions, showing a great numbers of one of the most important indicator of the US economy: 190K. So, what to wait this Friday?

Ben Bernanke chaired his last Federal Open Market Committee or FOMC meeting during a two day session which started Tuesday and ended Wednesday with an announcement which most likely surprised most forex traders as expectations called for the US Federal Reserve to leave the current stimulus in place.