Curve Watchers Anonymous is investigating the yield curve following Janet Yellen's exceptionally dovish FOMC announcement on Wednesday.

Yield Curve 2-yr, 3-yr, 5-yr, 10-yr, 30-yr

Change From Year Ago

Above rate table from Bloomberg.

Futures Suggest No Rate Hike Until December

Please consider Yellen Sends Odds of Any Rate Increase Below 50% Until December

“The likelihood that policy makers will lift their benchmark rate from near zero in September fell to 39 percent from 55 percent on Tuesday, according to calculations by Bloomberg using federal fund futures contracts. Futures traders have wiped out the chance of an increase in June, assigning it an 11 percent probability.“

Door Open

On Wednesday, Bloomberg took the stance Fed Drops Patient Stance, Opening Door to June Rate Increase.

I found that rather amusing and responded Fed Drops Word “Patient”; Door Open, But For What?

Although the Fed removed the word “patient”, the rest of Yellen's yap could not possibly have been any more dovish.

The panel said it will be appropriate to tighten “when it has seen further improvement in the labor market and is reasonably confident that inflation will move back to its 2 percent objective over the medium term.”

That statement can mean virtually anything, prompting me to ask “How much more improvement does the Fed want? Or does the Fed not believe all these glowing labor reports either?“

And of course no one has any clues about the true meaning of “medium term“.

Weak Data

For four months nearly all data except lagging jobs data has been weak.