Wall Street Steady Ahead Of Fed Rate Decision

Stocks are holding steady Wednesday (Thursday, Mar. 23, 2023, in Manila) as Wall Street bides its time until the Federal Reserve’s announcement in the afternoon about whether it will tighten the screws further on the economy, Stan Choe reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Markets are waiting for the Fed, which is stuck with a difficult decision.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in morning trading. It’s coming off its first back-to-back gain in two weeks before the second-and third-largest US bank failures in history threw the industry into turmoil.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was virtually flat at 32,561 points, as of 10:20 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was also basically unchanged, Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott also reported for AP.

Markets are waiting for the Fed, which is stuck with a difficult decision: whether to keep hiking interest rates to drive down inflation or to ease off the increases given the pain it’s already caused for banks, which could drag down the rest of the economy.

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