Good Morning. I'm Jason Ma, writing to you from Los Angeles. Between fighting inflation or the bank crisis, the Federal Reserve leaned toward the former. Not only did policymakers raise rates by another quarter point, dashing some hopes for a pause in tightening, the so-called dot plot of their forecasts indicated another increase is coming later this year. It signals the end of the tightening cycle may be at hand, though not soon enough for some who think the central bank has already done enough.
Wednesday's move comes despite the bank crisis, which previously led investors to price in a series of Fed rate cuts starting this summer. On Wednesday, Chairman Jerome Powell largely stuck to the same anti-inflation script he has been working from during the hiking cycle, which has now sent rates up by 475 basis points over the last year.