No Row-Back In FOMC Expectations On WSJ Piece

Making the rounds is a pre-FOMC Wall Street Journal piece by Nick Timiraos titled "Fed Meeting to Focus on Interest Rates' Coming Path".

• There is nothing "new" in there - a series of opinions from analysts, and pretty even-handed between dovish and hawkish outlooks at that.
• But US rates are softening a little bit following its publication, with Treasury futures at session highs.
• We would attribute this reaction to a nondescript article to the high anticipation of signals sent by Powell and the FOMC tomorrow. Market participants are taking note that there is no last-minute row-back from Timiraos's prior suggestions that the Fed is eyeing a slowdown in the pace of hikes.
• As MNI notes in our FOMC preview, we would expect such dovishness to be expressed in the press conference rather than the post-meeting Statement, though an amendment to the latter would likely be taken as a very dovish signal.