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(Reuters) -Oil prices traded in a narrow range on Wednesday as investors stayed cautious ahead of a potential interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve and its projections for 2025, while a draw in U.S. crude inventories offered some support. The Fed is expected to cut rates by a quarter point, but to signal a cautious approach to loosening monetary policy next year. "Oil prices ought to see more of a reaction to the crude inventory draw seen in the API data overnight... however, such is the diverting power of central bank rate decisions that investors in all of the trading mediums are taking a very light touch to proceedings" said John Evans, analyst with oil broker PVM.

(Reuters) -The U.S. dollar held firm on Wednesday before the Federal Reserve policy meeting later in the session which is expected to deliver a hawkish cut, trimming rates but suggesting less monetary easing ahead. Analysts recalled that the assumption that the Fed would reduce its level of 2025 easing had propped up the dollar recently, while markets kept pricing a 25 basis point rate cut. "We foresee a hawkish shift in the dot plot, consistent with the movement in market expectations since the last update in September," said David Doyle, head of economics at Macquarie.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Federal Reserve is expected to lower borrowing costs on Wednesday in what some observers are calling a "hawkish cut" set to be delivered alongside policymakers' updated interest rate outlooks and economic forecasts covering the first months of the incoming Trump administration. The anticipated quarter-percentage-point move would lower the U.S. central bank's benchmark policy rate to the 4.25%-4.50% range, a full percentage point below where it stood in September when it began easing the tight monetary policy used to counter a surge in inflation that began in 2021. How much further and how fast rates will fall next year remains increasingly uncertain with inflation still lodged above the Fed's 2% target, the economy growing faster than expected, and the prospect that President-elect Donald Trump's tariff, tax and immigration policies could change the economic landscape in unpredictable ways once he takes office in January.

The Federal Reserve will conclude its final meeting of 2024 on Wednesday, and next year will likely be Fed Chair Jerome Powell's last full one at the helm of the U.S. central bank, with his four-year term due to expire in May of 2026. Powell's more than six years as Fed chief have been consequential, but the coming months could present new challenges as well as an opportunity to close out some unfinished business. Powell's main mission is "completing the 'soft landing' with inflation at 2% and full employment, in what's likely to be trickier weather" with tax, tariff and immigration policies that could make the economic landscape harder to read, said Donald Kohn, a former Fed vice chair who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The Federal Reserve appears likely to take a step on Wednesday to nudge cash off its balance sheet as it enters a more uncertain period in what many see as the final months in its effort to draw down its balance sheet. Economists broadly expect the Fed to announce it's cutting the rate it pays money market funds and others to park cash at its overnight reverse repo facility, or ONRRP, by a bigger margin than the expected cut to its policy rate. While the federal funds rate target is seen being trimmed by a quarter-percentage-point to between 4.25% and 4.50%, the reverse repo rate, or RRP, is seen falling to 4.25% from its current setting of 4.55%.

(Bloomberg) -- Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong said Wednesday that the ongoing political turmoil in South Korea weighs on the economy, suggesting authorities may downgrade growth forecasts and take stabilizing actions in response.Most Read from BloombergHow California Sees the World, and ItselfThere’s a high chance South Korea’s gross domestic product will grow 2.1% this year rather than 2.2% as projected earlier, Rhee said as he assessed the economic impact of the turbulence that began w

OPEC+ is wary of a renewed rise in U.S. oil output when Donald Trump returns to the White House, delegates from the group said, because more U.S. oil would further erode OPEC+ market share and hamper the producer group's efforts to support prices. OPEC+ pumps about half of the world's oil and earlier this month delayed a plan to raise output until April.