Traders’ fears that the US stock markets would immediately jolt after the expected news of an interest rate hike appear to be unfounded in the short term. The US stock markets — The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq and the S&P 500 — appear to be rising at presstime, roughly one hour after the Federal Reserve anounced that it would raise the interest rates less than one percentage point.
The DOW, for example, is up 217.54 points or +1.24 percent.
Nasdaq is up 71.71 points , an increase of 1.44 percent.
When the news broke this afternoon, observers cscrambled to make sense of the news. A copmmentator on NCC, for example said that the state of economioc emergency is over. “The patient has left the hospital,” she said.
Business Insider explained that the Fed “increased its target interest rate corridor to 0.25%-0.50% from 0%-0.25% exactly seven years to the day from when the Fed put its zero-interest rate policy in place during the depths of the recession.”
