U.S. stocks finished lower on Wednesday after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s December meeting showed policymakers had a high level of uncertainty around their interest-rate projections and did not rule out further rate hikes.How stock indexes traded
The S&P 500
SPX
ended down by 38.02 points, or 0.8%, at 4,704.81 for its third straight session of declines.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
closed down by 284.85 points, or 0.76%, at 37,430.19.
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP
finished down by 173.73 points, or 1.18%, at 14,592.21 for its fourth consecutive session of declines.
On Tuesday, the Dow rose less than 0.1% to a record close of 37,715.04, while the S&P 500 declined 0.6% to 4,742.83, and the Nasdaq Composite slumped 1.6% to end at 14,765.94.
What drove markets Minutes from the Fed’s Dec. 12-13 meeting, released on Wednesday, showed that almost all the central bank’s officials had penciled some easing into their forecasts for 2024. However, an “unusually elevated degree of uncertainty” was attached to those forecasts. Fed-funds futures traders pulled back on the likelihood of a first interest-rate cut arriving by March. However, they clung to a high likelihood of more rate cuts from the Fed by year-end than the three quarter-point moves implied in policymakers’ December projections.The message from the Fed’s December meeting is that policymakers “are behind the curve on how quickly inflation has fallen,” said Luke Tilley, chief economist of Delaware-based Wilmington Trust, which has roughly $80 billion in assets under management. “While the minutes are a good reflection of Fed officials being cautious, we would expect them to cut more than three times as more inflation data comes in low.”Investors have been counting on easing inflation to help motivate the Fed to cut borrowing costs swiftly in 2024 — a factor that helped the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite surge 43% last year, with a large chunk of that rise coming over the final two months o …
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The S&P 500
SPX
ended down by 38.02 points, or 0.8%, at 4,704.81 for its third straight session of declines.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
closed down by 284.85 points, or 0.76%, at 37,430.19.
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP
finished down by 173.73 points, or 1.18%, at 14,592.21 for its fourth consecutive session of declines.
On Tuesday, the Dow rose less than 0.1% to a record close of 37,715.04, while the S&P 500 declined 0.6% to 4,742.83, and the Nasdaq Composite slumped 1.6% to end at 14,765.94.
What drove markets Minutes from the Fed’s Dec. 12-13 meeting, released on Wednesday, showed that almost all the central bank’s officials had penciled some easing into their forecasts for 2024. However, an “unusually elevated degree of uncertainty” was attached to those forecasts. Fed-funds futures traders pulled back on the likelihood of a first interest-rate cut arriving by March. However, they clung to a high likelihood of more rate cuts from the Fed by year-end than the three quarter-point moves implied in policymakers’ December projections.The message from the Fed’s December meeting is that policymakers “are behind the curve on how quickly inflation has fallen,” said Luke Tilley, chief economist of Delaware-based Wilmington Trust, which has roughly $80 billion in assets under management. “While the minutes are a good reflection of Fed officials being cautious, we would expect them to cut more than three times as more inflation data comes in low.”Investors have been counting on easing inflation to help motivate the Fed to cut borrowing costs swiftly in 2024 — a factor that helped the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite surge 43% last year, with a large chunk of that rise coming over the final two months o …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]