U.S. Federal Reserve could lower interest rates 3 times this year - UBS

Swiss wealth giant UBS has predicted that the U.S. Federal Reserve could lower interest rates three times in 2020.

Arend Kapteyn, global head of economic research at UBS, said that tariffs implemented in the trade war between Washington and Beijing would drag down U.S. growth to just 0.5% year-on-year in the first half of 2020.

"We think this tariff damage is going to push U.S. growth down ... that's actually going to trigger three Fed cuts, which is way off consensus, nobody believes that," he told CNBC.

The CME FedWatch tool places the probability of the Fed standing pat on interest rates at more than 50% through September. For the central bank's meetings in November and December, that probability falls to 47% and and 40.5%.

Kapteyn noted that Fed officials themselves have shown little inclination to make any moves, with meeting minutes indicating that they're at "a comfortable hold" and would want to see "a material downshift in the data" before reassessing their position.

Still, Kapteyn stressed that the impact from tariffs could just be temporary and that the U.S. is not headed into a recession.