The central bank’s policy-making Federal Open Market Committee showed it is in no rush to reduce rates, noting in a statement Wednesday that it “does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%.”
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady for a fourth straight meeting and signalled an openness to cutting them, though Fed Chair Jerome Powell threw cold water on investors’ hopes that reductions would begin in March.
The S&P 500 fell 1.6%, the most since September.
