Wall Street ends mixed, trade choppy after Fed's rate cut, outlook

Wall Street ends mixed, trade choppy after Fed's rate cut, outlook

By Abigail Summerville and Purvi Agarwal

Wed September 17, 2025 4:48 PM  

The market not only got everything it was hoping for but then some, with the ¼ point cut certainly now done but also a fairly direct statement from Powell that there would likely be two more cuts before year-end, which was the ideal that was hoped for. But since the ¼ point cut was already priced in, there wasn’t much to move the needle so at least tech stayed close to flat most of the session with monies flowing back to the Dow and boosting it 250+ points. But then everything went nuts right at 2 pm, first way up (the Dow over 500), then way down until 3 pm (the Dow losing 550+), then way up again in the next that hour to close at +260. What’s going on?

First the elation over the ¼ point cut. Then Powell’s warning that while labor remains the key issue, inflation is also a serious concern. Finally, he makes it official that two more cuts are likely. In other words, everyone was hanging on his every word, but there was a change in tone every few minutes. Something positive, everybody’s buying, negative and everyone is selling. Welcome to the wonderful world of Wall Street where everybody reacts (and often overreacts) to every little bit of news. But every reaction creates buying and selling opportunities which, though everything was relatively flat today, trading was quite brisk coming in at 18.9 billion vs the average of 16.47 billion, but my guess is that the bulk of those transactions took place between 2 pm and 3 pm. 

DJ: 45,757.90  -125.55       NAS: 22,333.96  -14.79      S&P: 6,606.76  -8.52          9/16

DJ: 46,018.32  +260.42      NAS: 22,261.33  -72.63      S&P: 6,600.35  -6.41          9/17

Wed 9-17-25 4:48 pm Wall Street ends mixed, trade choppy after Fed's rate cut, outlook | Reuters