TORONTO – Markets on both sides of the border fell sharply Wednesday afternoon after the U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates and reined in its projections for cuts in the new year, with the S&P 500 losing almost three per cent and the TSX down more than two per cent.
The Fed cut its key rate by a quarter-percentage point, and released projections showing it will likely cut twice in 2025 instead of the four cuts it projected just three months ago.
“When the path is uncertain, you go a little slower,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said.
The widely expected cut was the least important part of the announcement, said Andrew Buntain, vice-president and portfolio manager at Fiduciary Trust Canada.
Instead, market watchers were eyeing the Fed’s updated projections.
The Fed has “entered a new phase of monetary policy with that hawkish language, and that’s the pause phase,” said Buntain, and on Wednesday, that new phase sunk in for investors.
“Policy uncertainty is going to make for more volatile financial markets in (2025),” he said.
U.S. stocks posted one of the worst days of the year after the news. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 1,123.03 points, or 2.6 per cent, at 42,326.87.The S&P 500 index was down 178.45 points at 5,872.16,while the Nasdaq composite was down 716.37 points, or 3.6 per cent, at 19,392.69.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 562.71 points at 24,557.
The U.S. economy and consumer are doing much better than their Canadian counterparts, said Buntain, giving the Fed less room to keep lowering interest rates.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Canada recently cut rates by an outsized half-percentage point.
“In Canada, we’ve got a different set of circumstances. The consumer is not as flush with cash,” said Buntain, while higher interest rates are weighing on homeowners.
There’s also the “big unknown” of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats, said Buntain.
The loonie stayed below 70 cents US Wednesday, and Buntain predicts it will continue to be under pressure in 2025 “unless something really meaningfully changes.”
The Canadian dollar traded for 69.72 cents US compared with 69.91 cents US on Tuesday.
In the coming year, he expects more of the broadening seen in the back half of 2024 as investors started to pivot from the limited set of companies that drove a rally in the first half.
“It was such a narrowly led market on both sides of the border, that if that starts to change, then a wise investor would be very pleased that they diversified,” said Buntain.
Despite the down day, Buntain noted that it’s natural for markets to take some gains back near the end of a strong year.
The February crude oil contract was up 37 cents at US$70.02 per barrel and the January natural gas contract was up six cents at US$3.37 per mmBTU.
The February gold contract was down US$8.70 at US$2,653.30 an ounce and the March copper contract was up a penny at US$4.16 a pound.
— With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 18, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)
