Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day

Fed Day, Putin escalates and a German gas bailout.

Fed officials meet today and are expected to hike rates for the fifth consecutive time. Traders are nervous ahead of the announcement, with Stephen Miller, an investment consultant at GFSM, advising investors to "close shorts on equities and bonds". Hedge funds don’t seem to have heeded this advice though, ramping up their shorts across the front-end of the Treasury curve, according to the Commitments of Traders report. Currency traders are also girding themselves for the decision, with the dollar's rally at risk if the Fed disappoints on the Dot Plot.