The interest rate decision and associated economic projections will be released at 6am tomorrow, three hours ahead of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's official cash rate announcement.
A speech from Fed Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen will start at 6.30am.
''The meeting is certainly a 'live one', although the chance of a rate hike is relatively low,'' Mr Timms said.
Marker pricing implied a 20% chance of the Fed increasing rates this week. December, at 55%, was still a more likely option if the Fed wanted to get one more interest rate rise under its belt this year, he said.
Despite much of the recent market volatility being attributed to hawkish Fed commentary and changing rate rise expectations, market pricing was little moved from where it had been for the last two weeks.
The Reserve Bank was likely to follow the Fed and stay put, he said.
Bank economists in New Zealand are overwhelmingly in favour of the Reserve Bank keeping its interest rate unchanged at 2% tomorrow.
ANZ senior economist Philip Borkin said further easing would be signalled.
The New Zealand dollar was too deflationary to ignore and doing nothing would send it further skyward, he said.
But the Reserve Bank had shown a preference to move on Monetary Policy Dates.
The key themes shaping a lower outlook for the OCR were little changed from the August Monetary Policy Statement.
Global economic growth was lacklustre, inflation was low and financial markets were still addicted to central bank liquidity, he said.
The debate over Fed policy raged on and while some central banks - the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan - were hesitant to ease again, they were not signalling a reversal, giving strength to the New Zealand dollar.
The second theme was the continual strong performance of the New Zealand dollar, Mr Borkin said. It was just below 78 on the trade-weighted index and was threatening to test parity against the Australian dollar.
It was also above the Reserve Bank's alternative scenario which had the OCR heading far lower.
''That said, with domestic growth and commodity prices stronger, some of the dollar strength is not entirely unjustified.''
Inflation and inflation expectations were low and the Reserve Bank had shown itself to be sensitive to the latter, he said.
The strong dollar would mechanically lower the Reserve Bank's near-term inflation forecasts further, he said.
The environment needed pragmatism, balance and measured messages. The ANZ expected further policy easing to be signalled tomorrow, leaving the door open to a November rate cut.
