Here's everything the Fed is expected to do at its meeting this week

cnbc.com:

The Federal Reserve this week faces the monumental challenge of starting to undo its massive economic help at a time when conditions are far from ideal.

In the face of a geopolitical crisis in Ukraine, an economy that is off to a slow start and a stock market in a state of tumult, the Fed is widely expected to start raising interest rates following the conclusion Wednesday of its two-day meeting.

Those three elements pose a dauting challenge, but it's soaring inflation that the Fed will focus on most when its meeting starts Tuesday.

«The economic outlook supports the Fed's current plans to boost the federal funds rate in March and to begin to reduce their balance sheet over the summer,» wrote David Kelly, chief global strategist for JPMorgan Funds. «However, there [are] a number of areas of uncertainty which should make them a little more cautious in tightening.»

However, the Federal Open Market Committee meeting will be about more than a solitary interest rate hike. There also will be adjustments to the economic outlook, projections for the future path of rates, and likely a discussion about when the Fed can start reducing its bond portfolio holdings.

Here's a quick look at how each will play out, according to the prevailing Wall Street view:

Markets have no doubt the Fed will enact a quarter-percentage-point, or 25 basis-point, increase at this meeting. Because the central bank generally doesn't like to surprise markets, that's almost certainly what will happen.

Where the committee goes from there, however, is hard to tell. Members will update their projections through the «dot plot» — a grid in which each official gets one dot to show where they think rates will go in 2022, the following two years and then the longer