Yesterday’s A-list announcement for financial markets was the Federal Reserve’s final monetary policy meeting of the year and the Central Bank certainly didn’t fail to deliver as far as a reaction was concerned. Despite falling squarely in the goldilocks zone of the guidance being neither too hot nor too cold, the overall tone maintained a hawkish bias and as such has left stocks floundering.
The gambit also sets Jerome Powell on a collision course with Donald Trump and presidential meddling in the supposedly independent activities of the Fed could leave markets increasingly wary.
Wall Street futures have rebounded from overnight lows although just how much scope for support remains from here is open to debate. There’s not much at all on the economic calendar today that stands to provide any fresh direction so support is perhaps most likely to be found in the shape of short covering or de-risking going into the calendar year-end. However, with the Dow now sitting around 10% down on the month, its becoming increasingly difficult to escape the fact that Wall Street remains on course for its worst December in almost a century.
Ahead of the open we’re calling the Dow down 104 at 23220 and the S&P 500 down 13 at 2494