Investing.com – The next Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting is approaching, but according to Bank of America Securities, markets are not expecting anything from it, focusing more on announcements from the White House than from the central bank.

The meeting will take place next week, with the last meeting ending on January 29, and is widely expected to remain on hold after a relatively hawkish statement in December.

“We view the January Fed meeting primarily as a placeholder,” Bank of America Securities analysts said in a Jan. 22 note. “The Fed will most likely remain unchanged. After the FOMC issued a hawkish statement in December, the basic scenario was to hold interest rates in January. Since then, data flow has confirmed a more hawkish market price level. In particular, the labor market appears to have stabilized around full employment.”

According to the CME FedWatch Tool, fixed income markets currently project a 99.5% chance of interest rates remaining steady at 4.25% to 4.5%.

Investors don’t expect a major change in policy guidance at this meeting and little rebound from the Fed’s recent price change.

“The FOMC statement should undergo minor changes,” BOA added. “One potential change would be to update the description of labor market conditions from ‘Labour market conditions have generally improved since the beginning of the year and the unemployment rate has increased but remains low’ to ‘Labor market conditions have stabilized in recent months and the unemployment rate remains “low”.

The currency market is currently more focused on White House announcements than on the Fed, the US bank added.

“More uncertainty (and sources of exchange rate volatility) continue to arise from the trade policy outlook, while the more near-term Fed implications (i.e. January FOMC) appear relatively benign.”