Business
Heard on the Street Wednesday Recap: Powell Pause
The Federal Reserve held interest rates and signaled little urgency to resume cuts. The decision was approved on a 10-2 vote. Two Fed governors, Stephen Miran and Christopher Waller, dissented from the central bank’s decision.
Stocks wavered and the dollar held onto earlier gains as investors listened to Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference. Gold prices leapt to new highs on Wednesday, above $5,300 a troy ounce. The S&P 500 and the Dow industrials closed little changed, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.2%.
President Trump has been pushing for a Fed chair who will lower rates more aggressively and accept his input about where rates should go next. Trump wants somebody who may not exist—a chair who will pursue his demands while commanding enough credibility on Wall Street and from his colleagues to deliver them.