On July 28, Mabrouk Chetouane, Head of Global Market Strategy at Natixis Investment Management, said in a report that Fed Chair Wash is unlikely to challenge the current consensus at his second monetary policy committee meeting. Chetouane stated that Wash will not succumb to the temptation of a 25-basis-point rate hike, even though at this stage, it is almost impossible to bring inflation back to target by year-end. Additionally, Wash does not want to risk disrupting the slow but steady improvement in the labor market—a trend that has persisted for several weeks—by tightening monetary conditions. Analysts widely expect the Fed to hold steady on Wednesday, but money markets reflect a 38% probability of a rate hike. (Jin Shi)