The federal government’s relatively calm fiscal year (FY) 2015 ends later this week (on Wednesday, September 30, 2015), but the new fiscal year may see fiscal issues returning to the headlines, with a potential government shutdown looming if Congress doesn’t vote early this week to fund the government past September 30.

The title of this commentary is our answer to the question: Does the Fed know something we don’t know? Many market participants and pundits were asking this question late last week after the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) policymaking arm, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), decided not to raise interest rates at the conclusion of its…

The policymaking arm of the Federal Reserve (Fed), the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), will hold its sixth of eight meetings of the year this week. On Thursday, September 17, 2015, at the conclusion of the two-day meeting, the FOMC will release a statement and a new economic and interest rate forecast.

The latest Beige Book suggests that the U.S. economy is still growing at or above its long-term trend, indicating that some of the “transitory factors” that held the U.S. economy back in the first quarter of 2015 have faded. Comments also indicate that concern over China’s impact on the U.S. economy has increased and that…

Markets remain concerned that any damage done by the almost 40% drop in the Chinese equity markets since midyear will spill over into the Chinese economy, which, in turn, could slow global economic growth.