Poll: Will The Federal Reserve Raise Rates This Week? -- September 19, 2016

Investors, of course, will not be impacted one way or the other, except perhaps psychologically.

Traders, of course, will be.

Wall Street traders are doing this:

• at 5:00 p.m. today and tomorrow they are at the bar, telling their friends and trying to convince themselves that the Fed will not raise rates
• at 9:30 p.m. tonight and tomorrow night, they are home, telling their significant others they have hedged their holdings to cover in case the Federal Reserve does in fact raise rates
• at 4:40 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, Wall Street traders are at the bar telling their friends they made the right "call." All one has to do is watch which traders are drinking the best Scotch to know the truth.

And three hours ago, this is what the Las Vegas Sun had to say:

Traders in futures markets have put the probability of a September rate hike at just 15 percent, according to data tracked by the CME Group. The likelihood of a rate hike by the mid-December meeting is put at 60 percent.

Poll at the sidebar at the right. Prost.

As for me, I wagered a bottle of $115 Scotch vs a Readers Digest 10-year subscription for my wife, that the Fed will announce a "rate raise" this week. My wife is unaware of the bet; she is unaware that she has bet the equivalent of a great bottle of Scotch that the Fed will not raise rates.

In case that's not clear:

• me: the Fed will raise rates this week
• my wife: the Fed will not raise rates this week