Monday Morning Meeting Notes (03/25/2024)

General Info:

• As expected, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) maintained its target fed funds rate at 5.25-5.50%
• The Fed still expects to cut interest rates by 0.75% this year, but more committee members now see the possibility of 0.50% or fewer cuts according to the ever-unreliable Dot Plot
• Fun Fact: The Swiss franc symbol “CHF” is an abbreviation that stands for the Latin name of the country “Confoederatio Helvetica,” and the “F” stands for “franc.” The Latin form of the currency was established as the official form due to Switzerland being a multilingual country (German, French, Italian, Romansh), thus they opt for language-neutrality

Monday 03/25:

• U.S. new home sales for February
• Bank of Japan (BOJ) releases the minutes from its January monetary policy meeting

Tuesday 03/26:

• U.S. Conference Board consumer confidence for March
• U.S. Supreme Court hears case regarding FDA approval of mifepristone, the pill used in more than half of U.S. abortions

Wednesday 03/27:

• Cintas Corp, Paychex, Carnival Corp, Aegon, Sprinklr, and MillerKnoll report earnings
• Bank of England (BOE) issues its financial policy committee minutes
• Eurozone economic confidence and consumer confidence data for March
• China industrial profits for February

Thursday 03/28:

• Walgreens Boots Alliance reports earnings
• U.S. GDP (third reading of Q4 2023)
• U.S. initial jobless claims and continuing claims data
• U.S. University of Michigan consumer sentiment
• Germany unemployment data for March
• Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is scheduled for sentencing in New York

Friday 03/29:

• XPYRIA, banks, and financial markets are closed for the Good Friday holiday
• In 2011, the largest chocolate egg was produced in Italy according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The chocolate egg was 34 feet tall and weighed almost 16,000 pounds
• U.S. personal income and spending for February, which includes personal consumption expenditures (PCE)
• PCE is expected to have risen 0.4% month-over-month and 2.5% year-over-year
• Core PCE, which excludes volatile food and energy costs and is the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, is expected to have risen 0.3% month-over-month and 2.8% year-over-year
• Japan unemployment, industrial production, and retail sales for February
• South Korea industrial production for February