Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve of the United States
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday lowered interest rates for the second time this year in a continued bid to prevent unemployment from surging.
Fed officials voted for another quarter-point rate cut, lowering their benchmark lending rate to a range between 3.75% and 4%, the lowest in three years.
It is the first time since the Fed’s rate-setting committee was established in the 1930s that officials have set monetary policy while lacking an entire month of crucial government employment data due to a government shutdown.
While most Federal Reserve officials converged around a quarter-point cut at this month’s monetary policy meeting, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that officials are already beefing about what to do at the next monetary policy.
“There were strongly differing views about how to proceed in December,” he said at his post-meeting press conference, while stressing that no decisions have been made.
“I always say that. It is a fact that we don’t make (advanced) decisions, but I am saying something in addition here: That it is not to be seen as a foregone conclusion. In fact, far from it.”
The Dow and S&P 500 dipped into the red after Powell’s comment. The Dow fell by more than 200 points, or 0.45%. The broader S&P 500 fell 0.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.2%.
