Their view is that there'll be a clearer signal from the Fed's leadership that the timeline is coming into view at the Jackson Hole economic symposium in August or at the September meeting, before an official announcement at the November meeting, though the incoming data will dictate the exact sequence. Basically the meeting can be simplified to working out which the committee sees as the biggest risk - the recent rise in inflation vs the recent rise in the delta variant.

Further to that, speculation is rife that that key debate topping the FOMC agenda on Wednesday is whether to taper the Fed's purchases of mortgage-backed securities faster than its buying of Treasury debt. As Bloomberg wrote on Sunday, "policy hawks at the Federal Reserve are setting their sights on scaling back the U.S. central bank's massive intervention in the mortgage market as home prices soar. But the Fed leadership doesn't sound convinced by arguments in favor of a hasty exit strategy."

Maybe not.