{"id":18146,"date":"2025-03-19T18:17:01","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T18:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=18146"},"modified":"2025-03-19T18:17:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T18:17:01","slug":"fed-holds-rates-steady-cuts-growth-outlook-raises-inflation-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=18146","title":{"rendered":"Fed Holds Rates Steady, Cuts Growth Outlook, Raises Inflation Forecast"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>As expected, the U.S. Federal Reserve left its benchmark fed funds rate range steady at 4.25%-4.50% on Wednesday, the second consecutive pause since three straight rate cuts to end 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed&#8217;s quarterly economic projections, though, showed a sharp decline in expectations for economic growth, with the GDP increase in 2025 now seen at just 1.7% versus 2.1% at the December projection. The growth outlooks for 2026 and 2027 were trimmed as well.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Uncertainty around the economic outlook has increased,&#8221; the Fed said in an accompanying statement, which is likely a reference to the tariff regime being threatened by President Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Alongside slowing growth, core PCE inflation is now seen at 2.8% this year versus the previous 2.5% projection. The core inflation outlooks for 2026 and 2027 were left at 2.2% and 2.0%, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;dot plot&#8221; \u2014 showing FOMC members&#8217; outlooks for where interest rates might be headed \u2014 still sees the fed funds rate ending this year at 3.9%, the same as December&#8217;s forecast. The ending fed funds rates for 2026 and 2027 continue to be projected at 3.4% and 3.1%, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed also said it would begin to slow the pace of securities runoff from its balance sheet \u2014 so-called quantitative tightening \u2014 beginning on April 1.<\/p>\n<p>Bitcoin (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/price\/bitcoin\" target=\"_blank\">BTC<\/a>) was volatile in the minutes immediately following the release, but headed lower at press time to $83,500 against just above $84,000 prior to the news.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. stocks continue to hold solid gains and the 10-year Treasury yield has dipped two basis points to 4.28%.<\/p>\n<p>Risk assets have been beaten down over the past few weeks as mounting concerns over President Trump&#8217;s tariff threats and its perceived impact on inflation and economic growth weighed on investor sentiment. The Fed turning hawkish at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/markets\/2024\/12\/18\/fed-cuts-interest-rates-by-25-basis-points-bitcoin-slips-below-104-k-on-hawkish-tone\" target=\"_blank\">December<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/markets\/2024\/12\/18\/fed-cuts-interest-rates-by-25-basis-points-bitcoin-slips-below-104-k-on-hawkish-tone\" target=\"_blank\">January<\/a> meetings also quashed hopes of looser financial conditions for the near-term, posing headwinds for cryptocurrencies and stocks.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Fed Chair Jerome Powell will speak at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time (18:30 UTC) with traders monitoring the press conference for further clues of policymakers&#8217; outlook on monetary policy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As expected, the U.S. Federal Reserve left its benchmark fed funds rate range steady at 4.25%-4.50% on Wednesday, the second consecutive pause since three straight rate cuts to end 2024. The Fed&#8217;s quarterly economic projections, though, showed a sharp decline in expectations for economic growth, with the GDP increase in 2025 now seen at just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-18146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}