Janet Yellen has spoken. The Federal Reserve announced Thursday that they will not raise the key interest rate in September. Many investors speculated that a raise in interest rates wouldn’t bode well for the stock market. It seems that the stock market was doomed either way, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened almost 200 points in the red and continued its free fall.
Yellen shared that the Fed decided to do nothing because of concerns over global markets (i.e. China) and their belief that the United States economy is actually doing well. Despite of that silver lining, this inaction leaves investors with an uncertain feeling about the future of our economy.
Major stock markets in Europe, like Germany and France, fell over 2.5% after the news broke. The Dow wiped out all of this week’s earnings, dropping a total of 8% since the start of the year.
Crude oil prices even went down 5% to $45 a barrel. It turns out no news is bad news today.
Here are the final numbers from Friday on Wall Street:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 16,384.58 (-290.16)
NASDAQ: 4,827.23 (-66.72)
S&P 500: 1958.03 (-32.17)
