Here's everything to expect when the Fed wraps up its meeting Wednesday

Faced with stubborn inflation that has raised concerns about where policy is headed, the Federal Reserve has been ensnared in a holding pattern that likely will be reflected when it closes its meeting Wednesday.

Markets are anticipating a near-zero chance that the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank's policy-setting arm, will announce any change to interest rates. That will keep the Fed's key overnight borrowing rate in a range targeted between 5.25%-5.5% for what could be months — or even longer.

Recent commentary from policymakers and on Wall Street indicates there's not much else the committee can do at this point.

"Pretty much everybody on the FOMC is talking from the same script right now," said Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott. "With maybe one or two exceptions, policymakers pretty universally agree that the last few months of inflation data are too warm to justify action in the near term. But they're still hopeful that they will be in a position to cut rates later."

The only piece of news likely to come out of the meeting itself is an announcement that the Fed soon will reduce the level at which it is running down the bond holdings on its balance sheet before bringing an end to a process known as "quantitative tightening" altogether.

Outside of that, the focus will be on rates and the central bank's unwillingness to budge for now.

Officials from Chair Jerome Powell on down through the regional Fed bank presidents have said they don't expect to start cutting rates until they are more confident that inflation is headed in the right direction and back toward the 2% annual goal.

Powell surprised markets two weeks ago with tough talk on how committed he and his colleagues are to