Posted on 09/18/2019 12:00:01 PM PDT by BeauBo
The central bank announces it’s taking down its benchmark overnight lending rate to a target range of 1.75% to 2%.
According to the Fed’s “dot plot” of individual expectations, five members thought the FOMC should have held its previous range of 2% to 2.25%, five approved of the 25 basis point cut but keeping rates there through the rest of the year, and seven favored at least one more cut this year.
The Federal Reserve approved a much-anticipated quarter-point interest rate cut Wednesday but offered few indications that further reductions are ahead as members split on what to do next...
Major U.S. stock exchanges dropped after the decision was announced...
President Donald Trump, who has called Fed policymakers “boneheads” for not cutting rates enough, tore into Wednesday’s decision, saying Chairman Jay Powell and his colleagues have “no ‘guts.’” Trump says the Fed is risking U.S. competitiveness by keeping rates substantially higher than most of the rest of the developed world. The committee again cites “the implications of global developments for the economic outlook as well as muted inflation pressures” as the primary rationale for Wednesday’s cut.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Way to jawbone them, Mr. President.
Gold dropped
Market dropped
Market mostly drops when Powell talks on FOMC day
Bad choice for Fed chairman.
At least it’s a cut.
Half surprised they didn’t raise it 0.50%.
Excellent!!!
I guess grandma will be eating cat food now.
Yep, similar to a good coach keeping the refs honest.
Why are they cutting rates if the economy is going strong? It seems this is when they would want to increase them so that they have more wiggle room when things are going poorly.
Silver opened above $17.90 and now sits at a dead cat bounce of $17.65 up from $17.50 a short time ago.
The Fed is such a clown show!
2% GDP is not great. Should be at least 4%. This will help.
Yes!!!
I thought the economy was doing better than that. Never mind...
The economy is doing good employment wise but 2% GDP sucks and even Trump knows that. GDP growth does not cause inflation.
Market dropped. I thought it is supposed to go up after a rate cut. So, why did it drop now? The economy is not bad.
“The Art of the Deal.”
5.56mm
it’s coming back a little on the back of Apple.
here is part of the problem today
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/fomc
“Major U.S. stock exchanges dropped after the decision was announced... “
Down 0.xx% is statistically not a decline or a rise, suggesting the rate cut was expected and already priced in.
the initial reaction of the stock indices is usually wrong ... wait until tomorrow ...
I am more or less financially illiterate, relying on my financial advisors over the decades for my retirement strategies. In retrospect, I probably should have had a little more interest in econ 101.
As I am just a few years away now from full retirement, I have been working with said advisor to make necessary adjustments to my retirement strategy in order to maximize my benefits and minimize my taxes as my pensions and SS and retirement funds start to pay out.
Anyway I was at an event last night with one of the financial company speakers and they gave a really good economic history and outlook report with lots of charts showing the various metrics used to measure the health of the economy. I learned a lot.
One of the things I learned was that while high interest rates are generally bad for consumers, and thus the consumer economy, zero interest rates are also bad. According to the financial experts, 2 to 3 percent represents a healthy economy. Reason being if the interest rates are too low, you get close to negative inflation, and if consumers think the car they want to buy will be cheaper in 6 months, they wont buy it today. So to keep the consumer economy booming, you don’t want to have disincentives like that to buying.
I also learned why the left says the recovery stated 10 years ago under Obama. The stats do indeed show that the real downturn was in 2007/2008 due to the housing/loan collapse and that jobs started recovering ever since, but only at a very anemic pace. Trump removing regulation unleashed what was already a recovery. The funny thing was that the Fed held rates at zero for all 8 years with Obama, a sign they were worried the entire time about the health of the economy, and I guess based on the previous paragraph, created a disincentive to recovery.
One of the thoughts as to why Trump wants to head back to zero is because that is where other countries are now, which says how bad their economies are. So there seems to be a tension between having a healthy rate and competing for obtaining investment dollars. But that caused concern with the investor presenting for the reasons stated above.
Oh, if you want the bottom line, they are bullish on the economy and say don’t listen to all the media hype about coming recession. The media needs a crisis so that you will tune in to them, so they can get the ratings and sell ads.
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