by Calculated Risk on 3/15/2016 06:40:00 PM

Wednesday:
• At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

• At 8:30 AM, Housing Starts for February. Total housing starts decreased to 1.099 million (SAAR) in January. Single family starts decreased to 731 thousand SAAR in January. The consensus for 1.146 million, up from the January rate.

• Also at 8:30 AM, The Consumer Price Index for February from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.3% decrease in CPI, and a 0.2% increase in core CPI.

• At 9:15 AM, The Fed will release Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for February. The consensus is for a 0.2% decrease in Industrial Production, and for Capacity Utilization to decrease to 76.9%.

• At 2:00 PM, FOMC Meeting Announcement.  No change to the Fed Funds rate is expected at this meeting.

• Also at 2:00 PM, FOMC Forecasts This will include the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) participants' projections of the appropriate target federal funds rate along with the quarterly economic projections.

• At 2:30 PM, Fed Chair Janet Yellen holds a press briefing following the FOMC announcement.