The Federal Reserve gave investors exactly what they said they wanted on Wednesday, slashing interest rates by an outsized 50 basis points—but it still wasn’t enough. After a brief jump following the initial announcement, stocks went through a period of highly volatile trading before all three major U.S. market indices ended Wednesday lower.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 0.25%, while the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sank 0.29%, and 0.31%, respectively.
Markets were selling off even as Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters at his post-FOMC meeting press conference that the 50 basis point rate cut was meant to demonstrate officials’ “confidence” that current labor market strength can continue with an “appropriate recalibration” of monetary policy.
While no one can know the definitive reason behind stocks’ negative reaction to what should have been a market-juicing mega rate cut, Rick Rieder, BlackRock’s CIO of Global Fixed Income and Head of the BlackRock Global Allocation Investment Team, touched on one theory.
Looking at the Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections, Rieder noted that Fed officials penciled two more 25 basis point rate cuts this year, and another 100 basis points of cuts in 2025. That’s a lot, but it’s not what investors were pricing in prior to the meeting.
“The market has priced in a rate path that looks more like what an impending recession would require…versus the recalibration of rates to a less restrictive, or neutral, policy evolution, which is what we think this cycle likely represents,” he told Fortune via email.
Essentially, even though markets got their juicy 50 basis point rate cut in the near-term, the longer-term outlook for interest rates from Fed officials wasn’t as appealing as anticipated.
Thomas Simons, a senior economist at the investment bank Jefferies, echoed this outlook in a note to clients Wednesday. “The long-run rate continues to be revised up, implying a higher terminal rate. The 50 [basis point] cut today was a dovish surprise, but we do not see signs that more big cuts are coming,” he said.
The economy is ‘fine’ and ‘we’re not behind’
There’s another potential reason underlying stocks’ negative reaction to the Fed’s Wednesday decision. Some see Fed officials’ outsized rate cut as a sign that they’ve recognized they should have begun cutting rates months ago.
Powell addressed these concerns in his press conference Wednesday. “We don’t think we’re behind….You can take this as a sign of our commitment not to get behind,” he told reporters.
