– This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on March 16, Wednesday.
Welcome to CNBC Business Daily, I'm Qian Chen.
Right before the FED is about to announce its rate policies after the March FOMC meeting, we had our CNBC survey coming out.
The RESULTS - Steve Liesman has exclusive results from the CNBC Fed Survey of some of the nation's top economists, market strategists and money managers.
Wall Street agrees the Fed will not hike rates at its meeting this week but a June rate hike is squarely on the table. Survey respondents still predict two rate hikes total this year, with the fed funds rate ending the year around 0.84%. The Fed is expected to take slightly longer to reach its terminal rate, but that rate is nearly 20 bps higher than in January's survey. Nearly half say the Fed's policy is now too accommodative and an overwhelming majority say the December rate hike was the right move.
Meanwhile, the street is bullish again on stocks with the S&P 500 forecast to end about 3% higher this year and 9% higher by the end of 2017. Treasury yields are also seen rising from their current levels. Participants are also optimistic that inflation will pick up by the end of the year.
[RANDALL (t) KROSZNER, University of Chicago Booth School of Business Professor Of Economics] "071643 I think they are trying to look through the data, they are looking at how the labor market is doing, as you mention, retail sales, were a little bit weaker than expected in some downward revisions, but some of the other numbers are recently solid, GDP was revised up. The key thing is to look forward to inflation and inflation expectations, and that's one of the difficult things for them to really pin down exactly. 071706"
However, It seems like at every Fed meeting, we have a rate debate. This one's no exception.
We spoke to 26 banks, only one of them expected a move in April - that was Goldman Sachs, and even they were cautious about that, saying it wasn't quote, inconceivable.
So what does the majority think?
If you just look at this WALL, you can see the answer to that question is JUNE.
*70%* of the banks we spoke to expect the Fed to move that month.
Some of those, like Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC, OCBC, UOB, Maybank, Barclays and Westpac, are even more aggressive, forecasting 1 or more hikes this year.
But most of them weren't predicting a move in September - only 19% saw that.
Fast forward to December, and you can see 11 expect the Fed to move then.
Of those, Deutsche Bank is quite cautious, saying they expect growth and inflation to be subdued for the rest of this year.
In 2017 Goldman Sachs, HSBC and OCBC are all predicting multiples hikes from the Fed.
On the flip side, here are the banks that aren't expecting any moves this year.
StanChart expects Janet Yellen and gang to keep their powder dry for all of 20-16.
BNP Paribas says no change this year, and nothing next year as well.
CNBC's Qian Chen, reporting from Singapore.
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