The meeting of the rate-setting committee and regional tensions in the Middle East are two major events which affected the stock markets.
On Wednesday, Defense Ministry of Saudi Arabia presented the remnants of the missiles, used in the attacks. Saudi Arabia is not the only country which claims that Iran orchestrated the attacks on the infrastructure. U.S. officials also believe that Iranian military carried out these attacks on the oil facilities.
It is worth mentioning that the global economy is slowing down and regional tensions negatively affect the global economy. In this situation, regional tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia will further complicate the situation.
The meeting of the rate-setting committee of the U.S. Federal Reserve ended on Wednesday. Nevertheless, another interesting fact took place on Tuesday. The Federal Reserve carried out the first overnight repurchase auction for the first time in a decade. The purpose was to lower the federal funds rate from 9% to 2-2.25%. Federal Reserve bought repos worth $53 billion.
The New York Federal Reserve also bought securities worth $75 billion from the Wall Street dealers. However, this is a temporary decision.
According to the analysts, there was a chance that the U.S Federal Reserve would lower the interest rates by 0.25%. However, U.S. President Donald Trump thinks that the Federal Reserve has the capacity to lower this rate to zero. Trump believes that interest rates should be even lower. It is even better if this number is going to be negative. Nevertheless, the chance that the rate-setting committee would reduce the interest rate to zero was minimal.
U.S. stocks on September 18
The U.S. stock indexes fell on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased by 33 points or 0.1% to 27,088. The S&P 500 index fell by 28 points or 0.1% to 3,002 points. The NASDAQ dropped by 11.6 points to 8,174 points.
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