The Fed halts stretch of 17 rate increases

The Federal Reserve leaves key interest rate unchanged at 5.25 percent

The fed finally gave online stock market traders its first pause in 2 years. Following 17 consecutive rate hikes that placed the key interest rate at 5.25% up from the historically low of only 1%. The Economy may have slowed down a bit, but Wall Street didn’t rally.

The Dow fell down 42, The Nasdaq fell down 12 and the S&P fell down 4 points. The Russell 2000 Index fell down more than 8 points and was the biggest percentage loser of the day. The broad stock market indexes were all in positive territory, but all sold off following the no-rate-hike news.