Heather Long CNN Money
The probability of the Federal Reserve hiking rates today is 0%. So what about the rest of the year?
Fed Chair Janet Yellen keeps telling the world that any further rate hikes will be "data dependent." Watch the numbers on wages, jobs, inflation, financial markets and China. The rosier it looks, the more likely the Fed will raise rates.
But there's one big factor this year that the Fed rarely mentions: the U.S. presidential election.
The Fed has a lot of power over the economy and stock markets. How the economy fares could sway the election outcome. Former President George H. W. Bush pins his 1992 election loss on former Fed chair Alan Greenspan.
Raising rates too soon can also rattle the stock markets. It can also crush consumer and business confidence. Any economic pullback would likely hurt a Democrat's chances to win the White House. That's the reason why Donald Trump has blasted the Fed for manipulating interest rates to help Obama.
Yellen bristles at any suggestion of such impropriety.
"I have never seen political views in any way influence the policy judgments that are made inside the Federal Reserve," Yellen said in March when asked about it.
But the question remains: would the Yellen Fed, which is already cautious, really pull the trigger to raise rates before Election Day? After April, five Fed meetings remain this year: June 15, July 27, September 21, November 2 and December 14. Four of those occur before voters go to the polls.
Beyond what Trump says, a lot of eyebrows were raised when Lael Brainard, a member of the Fed's committee that sets interest rates, donated $2,700 to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The Fed didn't comment for this story.
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