Local financial advisor reacts to Federal Reserve meeting

By Blake Haas

BLOOMINGTON – Thanks to the Federal Reserve, investors received a bonus gift ahead of the holidays as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) surged to the highest in nearly two years.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced the Fed is pausing rates and leaving the door open to cuts in 2024.

“The news was not, ‘hey we’re going to leave rates unchanged.’ That I think was pretty well announced, determined, telegraphed to the markets,” Chris Ruedi, a Financial Advisor with Savant Wealth Management in Bloomington told WJBC’s Afternoon Show. “It’s the comments always after that, that are so telling. And the associated statistics that they put out with it. (We’re) seeing maybe as much as three rate cuts in 2024, three more in 2025 and maybe even a couple more out to 2026.”

The S&P 500 inched up 2% on Wednesday on the news and is up almost 23% on the year.

Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].