Powell Warns This May Be Last Rate Cut of 2025
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Jerome Powell, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, during a news conference in Washington on Wednesday. Fed officials delivered their second consecutive interest-rate reduction to support a softening labor market, and said they would stop shrinking the central bank’s portfolio of assets on Dec. 1.
Photographer: Al Drago/BloombergDonald Trump says he wants more rate cuts to help buttress a wavering US economy, and on Wednesday, the central bank gave him one. The Federal Reserve cut rates by a quarter-point for a second month in a row amid pressure from within (a new White House pick and simultaneous member of the administration) and from without (a president agitating on multiple fronts for control of the central bank).
The problem of course is that both unemployment and inflation are rising as the trade war takes its toll, and the shutdown has short-circuited government data (which was already under a cloud of politicization fears). Some economists have advised caution when it comes to further rate cuts, given the uncertain footing.