All eyes are on the Fed’s rate-hike decision, which could be more aggressive than anticipated to tame sticky #flation

Everyone's tuning in at 2 p.m. ET today... but not for the NBA Finals or “The Bachelor” finale — it's for Fed Chair Jerome Powell. All eyes are on the Fed's interest-rate hike decision, which could be #spicy. After May's concerning inflation numbers, many on Wall Street are forecasting that the central bank will raise rates by three-quarters of a percentage point — something it hasn't done since 1994. Based on Monday's stock plunge and surging bond yields, it seems as if investors are also awaiting aggressive price-taming action.

• A month ago: Powell said his Fed was not "actively considering" raising rates by three-quarters of a percentage point. Fed officials signaled they’d bump rates by a half percentage point this week (same as last month) and again in July.
• But that was before May's sky-high consumer-price numbers revealed that inflation had not peaked. The Fed has said that its decisions depend on the economy progressing as expected — and #flation rose faster-than-anticipated.
• Now: Expectations for a 0.75-point hike have soared from 3% a week ago to 40%. But Wall Street's divided: traders are still pricing in a 60% chance of a status-quo half-point hike.

Cloudy with a chance of flation… Consumers’ expectations of long-term inflation have spiked, with a key survey hitting its highest level since ’08. That’s concerning to the Fed, since inflation expectations can make inflation worse (aka: a self-flating prophecy).