(Axios) The Fed’s 180-degree turn was the story of 2019, asset managers and market analysts say.
What happened: Chair Jerome Powell and the U.S. central bank went from raising interest rates for a fourth time at the close of 2018 and giving market watchers the explicit expectation this would continue in 2019, to doing the opposite. The Fed cut rates thrice and even began re-padding its balance sheet in the last quarter of the year, bringing it back above $4 trillion.
Why it matters: With an accommodative Fed at its back, the S&P 500 jumped 30%, its best year since 2013 and among the strongest in recent history.
“One can conclude that the Fed is nimble,” John Doyle, VP of dealing and trading at Monex, tells Axios. “But you could also argue that they are watching equity prices and may even be bending to political pressure from Trump’s Twitter account.”
