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WASHINGTON, Jan. 28-- In its first policy meeting of 2020 that began on Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged despite renewed calls by President Donald Trump to cut rates, analysts have said. "We expect the Fed to remain comfortably on the sidelines during this meeting. Look for the official statement to underscore the good news in the housing market while lamenting the weakness in manufacturing," Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, a major accounting firm, wrote in an analysis last week. "Most within the Federal Reserve system are hoping to sit out 2020, but the threshold for a rate cut is still considerably lower than the threshold for a rate hike," Swonk noted, adding U.S. inflation has undershot the Fed's target of 2 percent since it was adopted explicitly in 2017. However, following three consecutive rate cuts in 2019, Fed officials generally agreed that it would be appropriate to leave rates unchanged "for a time", according to the minutes of the Fed's policy meeting on Dec. 10-11. "A number of participants agreed that maintaining the current stance of monetary policy would give the Committee some time to assess the full effects on the economy of its policy decisions," the minutes said, referring to the Fed's policy-making committee. In recent weeks, Fed officials have also publicly expressed their satisfaction with the current level of interest rates, signaling no change in rates anytime soon. | 
