Federal Reserve cuts rates by 25bps amid persistent economic growth

November FOMC meeting

The US Federal Reserve has cut its key interest rate by 25 basis points, bringing it down to a range of 4.5%-5%.

This marked a slight departure from the much larger cut that took place back in September, when the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) slashed rates by 50bps. In a meeting on Thursday (7 November), the FOMC took notice of recent indicators suggesting US economic activity has continued to grow "at a solid pace". "Since earlier this year, labour market conditions have generally eased, and the unemployment rate has moved up, but remains low," the FOMC noted. In October alone, the US economy added only 12,000 jobs, significantly below the downwardly-revised 223,000 jobs created a month ...