After trading higher most of the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed more than 600 points following the Fed’s policy announcement.
It cut some of its losses to settle at 34,168.09, down 129.64 points, or about 0.4 percent.
The Federal Reserve signaled that interest hikes are indeed around the corner yesterday afternoon.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that the central bank was ready to raise rates at its March 15-16th meeting and could continue to lift them faster ?!!? than it did during the past decade.
Powell left the door open to raising rates at consecutive policy meetings, which are held roughly every six weeks; something the Fed has NOT done since 2006.
Powell’s remarks led investors in interest-rate futures markets to fully anticipate a March rate increase of at least one-quarter percentage point and a nearly 70% chance of a second-rate increase by the Fed’s meeting after that in early May.
I’ll close on this note: Inflation has become a major concern for voters and a thorny political barrier for Biden as he tries to pass his legislative agenda…ah, yes, and now we have the Ides of March ready to appear on the horizon.
Lobster on the Prairie 