By Robert Eisenbeis, Ph.D.
On Wednesday, the FOMC left its policy stance unchanged. This decision was consistent with the message sent after the previous meeting and was not contradicted by speeches given by FOMC participants in the intermeeting period. This action was also consistent with the consensus view of economists who follow the Fed. Indeed, of the 39 economists responding to the April 23-25 Bloomberg poll, only two had forecast a rate cut in 2019, while the rest had the funds rate target steady through 2020.1 Despite this data, the stock market declined after