After much anticipation The Federal Open Market Committee has announced it will not raise interest rates this month. Fed Chair Janet Yellen stated at a press conference that their decision to keep interest rates where they are was based on instability in foreign markets, especially China, and that the U.S. economy is actually doing quite well.
The effect of all this on the stock market? A roller coaster ride on all three indices. The Dow and NASDAQ gained slowly leading up to the announcement, dropped below their previous close when the news emerged, spiked as Yellen spoke to the strength of our economy, then dove below opening levels less than an hour later.
The S&P didn’t quite have the drop the other two markets did at the time of the announcement, but did see a spike during the speech, and subsequent drop afterwards.
Yellen spoke to instability in China’s economy, which showed as the Shanghai Index closed down 2.15% bringing their losses over the last five days to 3.5%.
Here are the final numbers from Thursday on Wall Street:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 16,674.74 (-65.21)
NASDAQ: 4,893.95 (+4.71)
S&P 500: 1990.20 (-5.11)