NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Economists will tell you it's a pack of nonsense, but a key indicator has begun to suggest the Fed's next move will be a rate cut.

The fed-funds futures have shifted into territory laying slight odds on the Federal Open Market Committee lowering interest rates over the coming months. The monthly futures contracts say there's a 10 percent chance the Fed cuts at its Aug. 13 meeting and a 16 percent chance it cuts at its Sept. 24 meeting.

Call it freak-out insurance. It's not that the economy has suddenly run back up on the rocks (after its meeting two weeks ago the Fed said "economic activity is continuing to increase"), it's that the stock market is running so ragged that some people think the Fed might step in to try and catch it.

"It's about the stock market, not about the economy," said Bianco Research head Jim Bianco. He points out that the fed-funds futures have been trading in near lockstep with stocks lately -- the perception is that if stocks continue to decline, a rate cut will be an increasingly sure thing. Lower rates help the market because they help boost the economy and because they lower bond and money market yields, making stocks look more attractive.

But with the target for fed funds, an overnight bank lending rate, already at 1.75 percent, the lowest level in 40 years, the idea of the Fed lowering rates to prop up stocks is a bit of a stretch.

"It would take something catastrophic to make them do it," said Credit Suisse First Boston bond market strategist Mike Cloherty. "And it wouldn't provide much help. Everyone's reaction would be, 'What does the Fed know that I don't? What other bodies are going to float to the surface?'"

There are other problems. For one thing, cutting rates any further would invite even more comparisons between the U.S. and Japan. After the Japanese stock market bubble popped in 1990, the Bank of Japan cut rates to the bone. In the late 1990s they hit the zero bound, where they remain. Japan's economy continues to languish. More Fed cuts would confirm in some minds that the U.S. is going to be Japan all over again -- a good reason to take stocks even lower.

Another concern: With the funds target at 1.75 percent, the Fed only has seven quarter-point cuts left. If it wastes its bullets saving stocks, it would be powerless to help counter some other threat.

So no real chance for a cut? Don't count it out, says Bianco. Remember that the Fed cut rates three times in the wake of the 1998 Russian debt crisis as worries that global markets would seize up put the economy at risk. If stocks stumble further, the idea that a drop in stocks could snuff economic growth is going to make the rounds again, and Alan Greenspan & Co. may again lower rates.