The Open Market committee of the Federal Reserve Board meets Wednesday, and by afternoon they're expected to make an announcement about its latest policy move, as they do every six weeks.
President Donald Trump wants the committee to lower rates, but it doesn't seem likely because the signs of trouble in the American economy the Fed looks for in easing interest rates don't show much.
There's little suspense involved this time around, because the committee will be looking for rising inflation and spiraling unemployment rates and will see neither, so chances are the Fed will just keep interest rates the same, even if markets really want a drop of at least one-quarter-percent (or as economists call it, "25 basis points" on a scale in which 100 basis points equals one-percent of the interest rate).
President Trump would like to stimulate business a little to help keep a recession away while helping to ease the national debt a little by lowering interest the federal government pays on the money it's borrowed.
Cotton Wealth Management CEO Steve Cotton says "I think that there is a case to be made that they will just stand firm and further wait to see on the jobless rate and the inflation rate."
That's because the Fed keeps a narrow focus, he says -- there may be big economic trouble in Japan or war in Ukraine, the Middle East or Venezuela, but they keep focused on "the labor rate, that is the unemployment rate and the employment participation rate, and the inflation rate, those are the two dual-focus items that they look at," Cotton notes.
That's not to say that the 12 Fed presidents that make up the Federal Reserve Board ignore foreign financial woes, but their job is strictly to keep US markets steady.
They're looking out for consumer sentiment, Cotton says, and trying not to be distracted by other nations or by politics.
"Trump's point is every time the Fed lowers interest rates it eases the burden of servicing our national debt, and those are big dollars.
"That's the president's main beef -- the Fed has been too slow, too conservative, too hesitant, when inflation has clearly come down from 9% to 1.7% or 1.8%.
"And he makes a good case," Cotton concludes.