Stocks skid after Fed signals it will slow down its easing
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Dec 18 (Reuters) -U.S. stocks plunged on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point and the central bank's economic projections signaled a slower pace of cuts next year.
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 2.96%, while the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC lost 3.62% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell or 2.61%.
The Dow suffered its 10th straight session of declines, to mark its longest daily streak of losses since an 11 session skid in October 1974. The Dow and S&P saw their biggest one-day percentage decline since Aug. 5 and the Nasdaq saw its biggest daily decline since July 24. The small cap Russell 2000 .RUT dropped 4.4%, its biggest drop since June 16, 2022.
COMMENTS:
GENE GOLDMAN, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER AT CETERA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT, EL SEGUNDO, CA
"Investors had hoped he'd backtrack on some of the comments in the statement. But in actuality, he just doubled down. He's worried about inflation, he's worried about the uncertainty. The Fed needs a slow rate cuts."
"Everything in the dot plot suggested that we have higher economic growth, a stronger labor market, more inflation, fewer Fed rate cuts and a higher neutral rate."
"Taking all this together, it's concerning for markets because markets, with high valuations, were pricing in everything being perfect. No changes, no uncertainty. This basically adds more uncertainty the markets have not priced in."
"The market finally saw the news and they said, 'OK, this is actually going to happen. The Fed will not cut rates as much.' None of the information that came out today was a surprise."
ROBERT PAVLIK, SENIOR PORTFOLIO MANAGER AT DAKOTA WEALTH IN FAIRFIELD, CONNECTICUT
"It’s a little surprising the way the market reacted it’s very much sell on the news. Did what Powell say make it worse? I don’t think it helped, so what I saw is some selling pressure spiraling into more selling pressure and then it develops into an 1100 point down day."
"I don’t think it’s logical, everything that happened since the action by the Fed was largely expected. You got a cut and you have a Fed that’s on hold."
"The question I've been asked is will this last? It will last into tomorrow, but then you’ll have to determine how much pressure is coming in. Is it just the reaction selling pressure or is it pulling people who are locking in profits that may have been waiting until the early part of 2025 before selling. If it's the latter, then you have to wait for some kind of consolidation before stepping in and you'll be able to tell if it's one or the other by the volume and the size of the movements."
"Tomorrow, I expect the market to open lower and around 10 o'clock I'd hope to see some buying interest. If that fails to develop, the market will continue to sell off and then somewhere around lunchtime they'll try to see if the market can stabilize. If (there isn't) enough buying interest stocks will continue to move lower."
CAROL SCHLEIF, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, BMO PRIVATE WEALTH, MINNEAPOLIS
"I am a little surprised that markets are so surprised over the Fed conference call. I think traders were hoping the Fed wouldn’t focus so much on the sticky inflation side. Chair Powell also noted on multiple occasions how strong the economy remains, especially relative to the rest of the world."
JAMIE COX, MANAGING PARTNER, HARRIS FINANCIAL GROUP, RICHMOND
“The Fed played the role of Grinch today—taking back two rate cuts in 2025. Markets tend to overprice rate cuts into markets, causing sharp pull backs when even the slightest hint of a change in policy occurs. The irony is that the Fed is far more likely to go further with policy action in 2025 than it expects, given where the labor market is headed.“
JEFF BUCHBINDER, CHIEF EQUITY STRATEGIST, LPL FINANCIAL, BOSTON
"Our 2025 Outlook a couple of weeks ago, stretched positioning and sentiment left stocks vulnerable to a selloff. The big jump in inflation expectations and related bond selloff was a convenient excuse. Once support from Tech evaporated, no other groups were able to step in to fill that gaping hole."
GUY LEBAS, CHIEF FIXED INCOME STRATEGIST, JANNEY MONTGOMERY SCOTT, PHILADELPHIA
“Markets were looking for a ‘dot plot’ that was in range with what we got. We had two and a half-ish cuts priced into (2025) as of this morning, and we get a forecast which has two-ish cuts for (2025), so that's about in line. But it was really the skew of the summary of economic projections inflation outlook, and the confidence on inflation, also included in the summary of economic projections, that were a bit surprising.”
“The core PCE inflation central tendency range not only went up but skewed to the right. So, although there's a median of 2.5% now for 2025, the range that the Fed policy makers expect is 2.5% to 2.7%, so that's a lot higher inflation in 2025 than we had in prior projections, and so that's the biggest change.”
CHRISTOPHER HODGE, CHIEF US ECONOMIST, NATIXIS, NEW YORK
“The more hawkish SEP shows that the Fed is serious about tackling inflation and the wide variance of how Trump could implement policy will only complicate things. We still think disinflationary progress will continue, but it only makes sense for the Fed to slow down the pace of cuts to better assess how Trump’s policies interact with underlying economic dynamics. “
(Compiled by the Global Finance & Markets Breaking News team)
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