Powell’s Gut Punch to Equities May Be a Belly Rub: Taking Stock

The eye of the needle to thread can’t be narrowed further.

Fed Chairman Powell, as history has told us before, failed to deliver in the short term for the stock market (not that that is his job), adding yet another down session for equities on decision day (just one of the 10 meetings over which he has presided led to the SPX ending higher). And we can be honest, it wasn’t pretty for stocks -- this wasn’t was a nebulous result, despite the statement’s wording appearing dovish at first blush. Stocks had their second worst day of performance under Powell’s meeting tenure, ironically beat out for the top (most negative) spot by the December meeting which set the stage for the "pivot" in January. Despite that "hawkish hike" in December, as it was referred to at the time, the FOMC had actually moved the other direction, lowering their forecast for the number of hikes expected in 2019 to 2 from 3.