US stocks turned lower after the Federal Reserve raised rates by half a percentage point. However, while the Fed has downshifted the pace of tightening, the message given to the financial markets is that they’re not done yet.
The federal funds target range now stands at 4.25%-4.50%. At the same time, the Fed expects further rate hikes to over 5%, which is more than before. There are no signals yet of a pause in the rate hike cycle, however, the benchmarks started to correct the initial knee-jerk sell-off in the mid-latter part of the event.
The S&P 500 was moving off its lows of 3,965.65 to retest the 4,030s. At the time of writing, the index is trading down 0.6% at 3,995.33. There has been a mirror image in price action across the Nasdaq and Dow Jones as well.
While the Fed has signalled its plans to keep lifting rates next year to combat high inflation Fed's chair Jerome Powell was speaking and his comments seemed to have given mixed messages to the market. Consequently, we were seeing two-way price action on Wall Street. In US Treasury yields, they have flipped with the 10-year falling back from a high of 3.5610% to print 3.477% currently and on the way towards the day's low of 3.46%.
Opening comments:
We still have "some ways to go".
We expect ongoing hikes are appropriate to get sufficiently restrictive.
US economy slowed ‘significantly from last year.
Without price stability, no sustained strong labour market.
Strongly committed to inflation target.
Yet to feel full effects of tightening, have more work to do.
Not at restrictive policy stance yet.
Recent comments:
Getting close to sufficiently restrictive rates level.
No rate cuts until confident inflation moving toward 2%.
By middle of 2023 should begin to see slower inflation from housing services sector.
Size of february rate hike will depend on incoming data.
The index is moving within a bullish cycle and channel, currently retesting the W-formation's neckline and potential support at a 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level. If bulls were to step in here, there would be prospects of an upside continuation towards channel resistance and prior highs near 4,200.