Here come the Fed minutes … (TLT, TLO, USD)

Albert Gea/Reuters

The Federal Reserve will release minutes of its April meeting at 2 p.m. ET.

To recap the big news from the FOMC meeting three weeks ago, the statement removed language showing that the Fed was concerned about global-market risks to the US economy.

As expected, the FOMC left its benchmark rate unchanged.

The Fed’s forthcoming meeting in June is one that markets really consider ‘live’ partly because it will be followed by a press conference with chair Janet Yellen.

And so, these minutes are the last joint communication from the FOMC that markets can parse to get clues about what the Fed may do.

The consensus in the Fed Fund Futures market is still largely for rates to remain unchanged, although market expectations have risen towards the Fed’s in the last few days.

“The market is widely expecting the Fed to sound more hawkish in the minutes and after pressuring the front-end to higher yields yesterday, the curve weakness is focused on the belly,” said Aaron Kohli, global fixed income director at BMO.

We’ll have highlights from the minutes as well as the full text at the top of the hour, so refresh this page for updates.