Questions Will Hang Over a No-Drama Fed Meeting

Data released last week measuring the U.S. economy ensured that, absent a major communication mishap, this week’s policy meeting of the Federal Reserve should end up being a no-drama nonevent for markets. That’s doubtless what Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee desire. But it will leave for later meetings unsolved questions that have been highlighted by the latest economic numbers.

Friday’s initial reading for first-quarter growth came in at an impressive annual rate of 3.2 percent, significantly higher than the consensus estimate of just over 2 percent. It was also a remarkably long way away from predictions by some pessimists that the economy would actually shrink in January because of the month-long government shutdown that ended Jan. 25 and aftereffects of the market volatility that marked the fourth quarter of 2018.