Wall Street ends sharply lower after Fed keeps rates unchanged

Wall Street ends sharply lower after Fed keeps rates unchanged

By Noel Randewich and Utkarsh Hathi

Wed March 18, 2026

It was another huge rout today but the headline “sharply lower after Fed keeps rates unchanged” is not quite accurate. The fact is that for quite some time now analysts have said no rate change in March. For a long while, the hopes were for June but once the war started, it became October and perhaps not at all. So the Fed decision today to keep rates unchanged was already long since priced in to the market. No indeed what happened was today’s PPI report which at 3.4% was considerably higher than the 2.9% forecast which was a foreboding of more inflation and dropping all the indexes considerably right out the gate. There was zero expectation of a rate cut, but major hopes that at least the Fed would signal that oil would not figure in to inflation policy.  

But when the announcement came at 2 pm, not only was there no reassurance of past patterns but quite the reverse. Powell’s comments indicated quite specifically that the rapidly rising price of oil had to be considered for monetary policy at least until the war ended, and there was just huge uncertainty as to that variable. Thus, at 2 pm, there was an even more dramatic plunge all around which left the market a whopping 1.5% down on average. Oil is now near $110/barrel, oil facilities continue to be bombed and, with no end in sight, everything the market hoped for today got dashed culminating in another very bad day. Volume came in at 19.4 billion, close to the 19.8 average. 

DJ: 46,993.26  +46.85         NAS: 22,479.53  +105.35        S&P: 6,716.09  +16.71         3/17

DJ: 46,225.15  -768.11        NAS: 22,152.42  -327.11         S&P: 6,624.70  -91.39           3/18

Wed 3-18-26 5:27 pm Wall Street ends sharply lower after Fed keeps rates unchanged | Reuters