Trump was angered by the Fed's light rate cut. Wall Street mostly shrugged.

President Trump was unsurprisingly disappointed by the Federal Reserve's decision Wednesday to lightly trim interests rates by another quarter of a percentage point for the second time this year instead of hacking away at them. And he let Chair Jerome Powell know it.

Trump has never been quiet about his desire for the Fed to slash rates to zero or even below, so his criticism is really just more of the same. Powell, for his part, didn't seem any closer to caving to those demands from Trump. "I do not think we'd be looking at using negative rates, I just don't think those will be at the top of our list," Powell told reporters. "If we were to find ourselves at some future date again at the effective lower bound, again not something we were expecting, then I think we would look at using large scale asset purchases and forward guidance."

Wall Street, meanwhile, wasn't too perturbed by the Fed's decision, one way or the other. "There isn't too much new to digest in today's Fed announcement, although it's interesting to see an increasingly divided Fed," Mike Loewengart, vice president of investment at E-Trade Financial, told Bloomberg, referring to the fact that three bank presidents dissented — two wanted to keep rates steady, while a third wanted to bring them down by a half point. The major indexes, while topsy-turvy throughout the day, ended up rebounding by closing time.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up