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The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady Wednesday for the fourth-straight meeting, keeping its benchmark lending rate at a 23-year high, as Wall Street eagerly awaits rate cuts sometime this year.
The central bank has raised rates 11 times since March 2022 in a bid to combat the fastest inflation in decades. Price hikes have eased substantially since then, inching closer to the Fed’s 2% target. That means the Fed is due to cut rates in 2024, which officials themselves projected last month, but the central bank’s latest policy statement released Wednesday pushed back on expectations of the first rate cut coming in March.
“The Committee does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range for the federal funds rate until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent,” the statement read.