UBS analysts suggest that a slowdown in the U.S. economy, which reflects the disruption to the manufacturing sector caused by the trade dispute with China, will rein in the Fed in the near term.

• “A partial government shutdown has exacerbated the situation. The U.S. federal government was shut down from 22 December 2018 to 25 January 2019. The economists are also expecting a sharper slowing in the economy in 2020 than the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) does to 1.7 percent versus the FOMC's 1.9 percent.”
• "These factors will keep them on hold both this year and next," the CIO team says. "That said, we see the bar for a rate cut - which the market has priced - as very high and a rate cut as unlikely."