US Federal Reserve policymakers are expected to preserve their dwindling economic ammunition today by holding US interest rates at four-decade lows.
With a US war in Iraq likely in days, the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee might, at most, signal an openness to future reductions by changing its assessment of the economy to one warning of the potential for future weakness.
But economists see little chance of an actual cut now in the face of so many unknowns.
Given the uncertainties about how the war will progress and about how much of the economy's current softness is due to those uncertainties, some economists said even a shift in the Fed's balance of risks away from the current stance that risks are evenly balanced was not a sure thing.
"Monetary policy currently is very accommodative and I think the Fed is basically in a wait-and-see mode until it is more apparent how any conflict will go," said one economist.