Fed holds inter­est rates steady as 2024 cut gets more elu­sive

The Fed­er­al Reserve held inter­est rates steady Wednes­day fol­low­ing sev­er­al months of high­er-than-expect­ed infla­tion, with investors now not expect­ing a rate cut until months from now.
After a two-day meet­ing of its Fed­er­al Open Mar­ket Com­mit­tee in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., the Fed announced it will keep its rate tar­get at 5.25% to 5.50%. The move was wide­ly telegraphed.
“Infla­tion is still too high,” Fed Chair­man Jerome Pow­ell said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence after the meet­ing. “Fur­ther progress in bring­ing it down is not assured, and the path for­ward is uncer­tain. We are ful­ly com­mit­ted to return­ing infla­tion to our 2% goal.”
Because of infla­tion prov­ing sticky in the first part of the year, the tim­ing for when the Fed might first cut inter­est rates has been con­sis­tent­ly pu …