Fed slashes rate
Stocks tumble after first interest chop since 2008 $1M meth ring busted up in Jersey
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for the first time in a decade to try to counter threats ranging from uncertainties caused by President Trump’s trade wars to chronically low inflation and a dim global outlook.
The Fed also repeated a pledge to “act as appropriate to sustain the expansion” — wording that the financial markets have interpreted as a signal of possible future rate cuts.
Stocks tumbled soon after the Fed issued its statement at 2 p.m. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had been nearly flat before the announcement, was off nearly 300 points about an hour later just as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell was holding a news conference.
Investors appeared disappointed that Powell declined to say that the Fed envisions multiple rate cuts to follow Wednesday’s.
The central bank reduced its benchmark rate — which affects many loans for households and businesses — by a quarterpoint to a range of 2% to 2.25%. It’s the first rate cut since December 2008 during the depths of the Great Recession, when the Fed slashed its rate to a record low near zero and kept it there until 2015. The economy is far healthier now despite risks to what’s become the longest expansion on record.
In addition to its rate cut, the Fed also said it would stop shrinking its enormous bond portfolio in August, two months earlier than planned. This step is intended to avoid putting upward pressure on long-term borrowing rates. The Fed had aggressively bought Treasury and mortgage bonds after the financial crisis to drive down long-term rates, but had been gradually shrinking its balance sheet as the economy strengthened. The Fed’s action Wednesday was approved in an 8-to-2 vote, with two dissents: Esther George, president of the Fed’s Kansas City regional bank, and Eric Rosengren, head of the Boston Fed, wanted to keep rates unchanged. It was the first time there have been as many as two dissents since December 2017 and suggested that Powell may face opposition if he seeks further rate cuts this year.
Compared with when the Fed previously cut rates more than a decade ago, the economy is now solid by most measures, if not spectacular. Consumers are spending. Unemployment is close to a half-century low. A recession hardly seems imminent.
Yet the Fed under Powell has signaled that rising economic pressures, notably from Trump’s trade wars and from weakness in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, have become cause for concern. So has an inflation rate that remains stubbornly below the Fed’s 2% target level. Cops took down a major methamphetamine lab in New Jersey and seized $1 million worth of the drug, along with other narcotics, authorities said.
A raid triggered by complaints from neighbors in West Orange, who noted strange comings and goings from the house, netted marijuana, drug paraphernalia, $3,480 in cash, four BB guns and bank deposit receipts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in additon to the meth.
Police arrested Brian Cheda Hackembruch, 23, in his bedroom, Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said. Cops are seeking a second suspect, Eduardo Martinez, 39.
On social media , Chedahackembruch claimed to be an engineering student at NYU and a research associate at NYU Langone, although the school said he was only briefly matriculated and NYU Langone said he was once an unpaid inter, according to NBC 4NY.