Minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee’s December meeting didn’t wake up the stock market.
The S&P 500 was still hovering around breakeven. The Dow was down 52 points, or 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite was down slightly. All three were in the same trading range they have hovered in all day on Tuesday.
At the Dec. 9–10 policy meeting, the FOMC opted to lower its target range for the federal-funds rate by quarter of a point to between 3.5% and 3.75%.
“Most participants judged that further downward adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate would likely be appropriate if inflation declined over time as expected,” the minutes said. “With respect to the extent and timing of additional adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, some participants suggested that, under their economic outlooks, it would likely be appropriate to keep the target range unchanged for some time after a lowering of the range at this meeting.”
You know it is slow on Wall Street when the release of Federal Reserve policy meeting minutes is one of the big events of the week. But with the market closed Thursday for New Years, there’s not a ton on the schedule.