Will the Federal Reserve message that it is no longer “patient” at the conclusion of its Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Wednesday?
The semantics behind the word “patient” have been dissected since Fed Chairman Jerome Powell first deployed the word in the Fed’s January 31 meeting, when policymakers flipped dovish and softened their stance on wanting to raise interest rates to the economy’s “neutral” level. 6park.com

Powell’s “pause” hinted that the Fed was still leaving rate hikes on the table.
But building trade tensions and lackluster economic data has pushed some Fed officials to publicly acknowledge the case for a rate cut. And expectations for the Fed to drop its “patient” language, in addition to one or two dissenting votes, could make the June meeting the tipping point for the “pause” to turn into a full stop.
Wall Street is expecting the FOMC to keep rates steady at the current target range of 2.25% to 2.5%, but Powell’s commentary — in addition to the dot plots scheduled for release — will be increasingly in view as markets try to decipher the degree of dovishness as the Fed flips more neutral.
Flexible?
Goldman Sachs wrote June 14 that the Fed is likely to drop the word “patient,” and Barclays predicted that the Fed will replace the word “patient” in the FOMC statement with “flexible.”
“[W]e think the word ‘patient’ in the FOMC statement has served its useful life,” Barclays wrote June 13. “In our view, retention of ‘patient’ would likely sound too hawkish to markets that are already pricing easing in July and around 100 [basis points] of easing over the next four quarters.” 6park.com