The Federal Reserve did and said the expected a little earlier this afternoon and Wall Street largely shrugged its shoulders, thus far. Specifically, the lead bank, coming off back-to-back reductions in the federal funds rate this summer, just announced that it was cutting the target lending rate for a third time in 2019.
The latest reduction, to a range of 1.50%-1.75%, did not bring a surge of equity buying, however. That is because the bank by removing a key clause that had appeared in post-meeting statements since June saying that it was committed to “act as appropriate to sustain the expansion,” suggested that it was likely to pause before trimming borrowing costs further.
It should be noted that the next FOMC meeting is scheduled to take place on December 10th and 11th. Meanwhile, the rate action was not by unanimous vote, as two regional presidents, Esther George of the Kansas City Fed and Eric Rosengren of Boston, voted to hold the line on the funds rate at this time.
Also, the Fed, in removing the more aggressive rate language, noted that it would be more data driven going forward. So, whereas about 100% of the traders and economists surveyed had suggested that there would be a rate cut today, the probability is only about 25% for December.
As to the market, after a slight move lower just after the issuance of the monetary statement, the Street has righted itself, and 30 minutes after the release, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 15 points; the S&P 500 was just about flat; and the NASDAQ, was off nominally. So, the Street may be in agreement with the prospective pause, but not necessarily overjoyed by it.
– Harvey S. Katz, CFA
At the time of this writing, the author did not have positions in any of the companies mentioned.
