by Medora Lee
USA Today
U.S. stocks closed lower after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged and took a less confident view on inflation, and chip darling Nvidia renewed its slide on a report President Donald Trump’s considering restricting the company’s sales to China.
Nearly everyone expected the Fed to keep interest rates steady, but the Fed dropped in its statement reference to inflation making “progress” toward its 2% objective. It simply noted that inflation remained “somewhat elevated.”
Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics chief North America economist still forecasts a rate cut in March, but “that will require a big downward benchmark revision to payrolls and a muted inflation out-turn in January. If the Fed doesn’t resume cutting in the next few months, however, we suspect the window will have closed.”