FOMC day is finally upon us

Strap yourselves in. It could be a wild ride once we get to the main event today.

For now, there’s plenty of time to prepare for that. European trading today will be more of a placeholder as such, with little conviction to be really had – as has been the case for the week so far.

The Fed is expected to hike by 50 bps and anything else will be a bit more of a surprise. The question is will they maintain a more aggressive tone to set up another 50 bps rate hike in June? That will be what markets will be watching out for.

The next big question is where are rates headed towards and how fast will we be getting there? At this point, the Fed will need to cement its credibility on having opening the floodgates to rate hikes and they need to convince that they are ready to do what it takes to battle inflation, even if they aren’t the best equipped to do so.

Here are a host of previews to wrap your head around the meeting in the buildup: