Federal Reserve holds interest rates steady, maintains forecast for 3 rate cuts in 2024

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday held interest rates steady and made no changes to its forecast that it will be necessary to cut rates three times in 2024.

The central bank's benchmark interest rate remained in a range of 5.25%-5.50% at the conclusion of its latest policy meeting on Wednesday, the highest since 2001.

While maintaining forecasts the Fed would need to lower this rate by 0.75% by the end of this year, the Fed's policy announcement said the central bank does "not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%."

Nine officials who offered forecasts on Wednesday see the central bank needing to cut rates three times this year; five officials believe two cuts will be needed.

The decision to stay the course for three rate cuts this year — the same number of cuts forecast in December — comes after sticky inflation data was thought to push officials to scale back the number of cuts for 2024.

Those hotter-than-expected inflation readings in January and February, Fed Chair Jay Powell said at a Wednesday afternoon press conference, "haven’t really changed the overall story, which is that of inflation moving down gradually on a sometimes bumpy road toward 2%. I don’t think that story has changed."

The readings, however, did "very broadly" suggest that "we were right to wait until we're more confident."

He declined to provide a time frame on when any cuts could begin, saying the Fed could begin dialing back policy restraint "at some point this year."

Investors are still betting on a first cut in June, and those odds rose following the Fed's decision Wednesday — as did the stock market.

The Fed forecasts for 2025 interest rate cuts, however, were tempered slightly in Wednesday's updated projections, with officials now expecting that three additional rate cuts will be needed next year, down from the four expected in December.

Officials also upped their inflation outlook to 2.6% this year from 2.4%; FOMC members still expect inflation to reach 2.2% next year.

"Inflation has eased over the last year but remains elevated," the statement reiterated. "The Committee remains highly attentive to risks."

Core consumer prices based on the Consumer Price Index showed an annual increase of 3.8% in February after rising 3.9% in January. These readings, while down from levels closer to 5.5% last year, are still nearly double the Fed's 2% inflation target.

But the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the core Personal Consumption Expenditures index, has showed better progress on the inflation front, rising 2.8% in January after a 2.9% rise in December.

Powell said Wednesday that "we are not going to overreact to these two months of data. Nor are we going to ignore them."

Read more: What the Fed rate decision means for bank accounts, CDs, loans, and credit cards

The Fed also sharply revised up its outlook for the economy this year, with officials now expecting growth to reach 2.1% in 2024, up from the 1.4% forecasted in December.

Officials also see the unemployment rate ending this year at 4%, down from a previous estimate of 4.1%, as the job market, while cooling, continues to show signs of strength and consumers continue to spend albeit at a slower clip. The statement noted job gains have "remained strong."

As officials raised their growth outlook, they also increased their expectations for the longer-run neutral rate, or the interest rate at which they believe they are neither boosting nor slowing economic growth, to 2.6% from 2.5%.

Separately, Powell said in his press conference that central bank officials discussed a strategy for slowing the shrinking of the Fed’s balance sheet, a lesser-known policy tool it has been using to tighten financial conditions.

Over the last two years, the Fed has shed roughly $1.5 trillion in Treasury and mortgage bonds that it accumulated while trying to stimulate the economy during the early parts of the pandemic, at a pace of roughly $100 billion every month. The strategy is known as "quantitative tightening," or QT.

Allowing those bonds to mature acts to push up long-term interest rates as more bonds have to be snapped up by other investors.

In discussing a slowing of that runoff, policymakers hope to avoid the sort of messy upheaval in financial markets that happened the last time the Fed tried to wind down its balance sheet, at the end of last decade.

Powell said the committee did not make a decision Wednesday. But he expects it will be appropriate to start that slowdown "fairly soon."

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