Having sailed through a large part of the year under a cloud of heightened economic uncertainty, investors can now take some comfort from the signals given out by the Federal Reserve that the US economic expansion remains intact.
Defying US President Donald Trump’s persistent demand to cut the benchmark interest rate further, the central bank’s chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday November 14 that it has no imminent plan to do so. The Fed has already made three reductions this year, having lowered policy rates by 75 basis points to its current range of 1.5% to 1.75%.
For institutional investors, the Fed’s outlook of moderate growth, a...