Wednesday preview: All eyes on the Fed

All eyes are on the US central bank´s policy meeting and any hints it might drop regarding potential changes to the outlook following the election victory by US President-elect Donald Trump.

Ahead of the announcement, Fed funds futures were pricing in full odds of a 25 basis point increase in the Fed´s target range for interest rates, to between 0.50% and 0.75%.

However, traders were keenly awaiting the updated short-term macroeconomic projections from Fed board members and regional bank presidents.

The latest set of forecasts, published in September, included two rate hikes in 2017.

To take into account, recent Fedspeak appeared to indicate that policymakers believed it was still soon to draw a judgement on the likely policies, and their impact on the economy, of the new President´s policies.

Be that as it may, any significant changes would likely have considerable implications for the conduct of monetary policy by other central banks, the Bank of England included.

On the corporate side of things, oil field services outfit Wood Group´s trading statement would be closely watched for any guidance from the company looking out to 2017, given potential read-across for other firms in the sector.

Nonetheless, wether it would do so was unclear as in the past it had sometimes chosen this event for it, but not always, said Numis analyst John Hubbard.

In any case, markets would be looking for confirmation of its prior guidance for fiscal year 2016 and any general commentary on the market.

Wednesday December 14

INTERIMS
Dixons Carphone , Freeagent Holdings, Micro Focus International, Sysgroup

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE
Brunner Inv Trust, M Winkworth

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
Business Inventories (US) (15:00)
Capacity Utilisation (US) (14:15)
Crude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30)
Industrial Production (EU) (10:00)
Industrial Production (US) (14:15)
MBA Mortgage Applications (US) (12:00)
Producer Price Index (US) (13:30)
Retail Sales (US) (13:30)

Q2
Freeagent Holdings

FINALS
IDOX

SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Lancashire Holdings Limited

EGMS
Amedeo Air Four Plus Limited, Powerflute Oyj (DI)

AGMS
BowLeven, CQS New City High Yield Fund Limited, Mobile Streams, Northamber, Orchard Funding Group , Schroder Oriental Income Fund Ltd.

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
Claimant Count Rate (09:30)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
River and Mercantile Group , Volution Group (WI)