With a endless information hitting Wall Street about Wednesday's Federal Reserve meeting, what should you look for first? A Goldman Sachs economist told CNBC what he's looking for in tomorrow's statement.
"I think the single most important thing to look at is probably the dot plot, and, in particular, what they're showing for the interest rate at the end of 2016," Jan Hatzius, Goldman Sachs' chief economist, told CNBC's "Closing Bell."
Unlike the rest of the statement, which is lengthy and updated piecemeal, the dot plot boils down the Fed's expectations, Hatzius said. The essence of the Federal Reserve statements will be that rates will rise at a gradual pace, whether or not those words are used in the statement, Hatzius said.
"It's an expectation, not a commitment," Hatzius said. "And an assertion that the economy is doing a lot better than it was."
If the market is any indication, the first interest rate hikes should not be delivered as an abrupt tightening of the money supply, Hatzius said. But more likely than not, there will be more rate hikes to come.
"It doesn't make any sense to hike but then basically signal 'this is it,'" Hatzius said. "They don't want to do one-and-done. The idea is that the time has come to start normalizing, and I think they want to start normalizing gradually. Of course, they can't make any real promises on that because they don't know how the economy is going to evolve."