Day Ahead: Top 3 Things to Watch

Investing.com – Here’s a preview of the top 3 things that could rock markets tomorrow.

1. It’s Fed Day!

The Federal Reserve will deliver its final interest rate decision for the year at 2:00 PM ET (19:00 GMT) Wednesday.

But there are unlikely to be any surprises as Fed members, including Chairman Jerome Powell, have shown little interest in cutting rates further following the October rate cut.

The Federal Open Market Committee is expected to keep its unchanged in a range of 1.5% to 1.75%. The chances of no change are 98.5%, according to Investing.com’s .

In its previous meeting, the Fed all but said that rates were unlikely to move higher, suggesting the path of future monetary policy is likely to remain steady or lower.

After the rate decision, attention will turn to Powell’s slated to start at 2:30 PM ET.

2. U.S. Inflation Data Due

Market participants look ahead to the release of consumer inflation data due Wednesday at 8:30 AM ET (13:30 GMT).

Economists forecast measured by the Consumer Price Index in November rose 0.2% after a 0.4% rise in October. The gain for the core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy price, is expected to remain unchanged at 0.2%.

That would bring year-over-year CPI growth to 2.0%, up from 1.8% previously, and core CPI unchanged at 2.3%.

2. EIA Report on Tap

The releases its weekly petroleum report due Wednesday.

The EIA is expected to report crude stockpiles fell by 2.76 million barrels last week.

Late Tuesday, ahead of the EIA report, the American Petroleum Institute released data, which while not perfectly correlated with the EIA’s report often serves as an early indication of weekly petroleum levels, that showed rose by 1.41 million barrels last week.

crude rose 22 cents to settle at $59.24 a barrel on hopes that U.S.-China trade tensions will ease and boost global oil demand.

The uncertainty over whether the U.S. and China will strike a deal before the Dec. 15 deadline has dominated direction in oil prices and limited gains following the deal by OPEC to deepen production cuts in 2020.

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