Stocks ended Wednesday's session lower, but far off their lows as cryptocurrency prices largely recovered from their earlier sell-off. Major market averages turned slightly lower in late afternoon trade after the Federal Reserve's minutes from its latest meeting signalled that the central bank may move to reconsider its asset purchase programs in upcoming meetings.
Here's how the market settled on Wednesday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
April Fed meeting showed most FOMC members thought economy was far from inflation, employment goals:
The Federal Reserve's April meeting minutes released on Wednesday showed that most Federal Open Market Committee members did not support near-term rate increases due to the economy still needing to meet the central bank's employment goals.
"Participants observed that economic activity had picked up sharply this year, with robust gains in consumer spending, housing-sector activity, business equipment investment, and manufacturing production," the Fed minutes stated. "They noted that the acceleration in economic activity reflected positive developments associated with the rapid pace of vaccinations as well as continued support from fiscal and monetary policies. Nevertheless, participants generally noted that the economy remained far from the Committee's maximum employment and price stability goals."
"A number of participants suggested that if the economy continued to make rapid progress toward the Committee's goals, it might be appropriate at some point in upcoming meeting to begin discussing a plan for adjusting the pace of asset purchases," the meeting minutes added.
Coinbase experiences service disruptions amid cryptocurrency volatility:
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was down this morning amid trading volatility from digital coins like bitcoin and ethereum. The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States wrote in a status update Wednesday morning that it was investigating delays in withdrawal due to network congestion, drawing a lot of criticism from users on social media that were looking to buy the dip in cryptocurrency values.
Coinbase has since resumed full operations, tweeting: "We've put a fix in place and are monitoring the results, however you shouldn't run into any more trouble logging into Coinbase and Coinbase Pro. We sincerely apologize for any trouble caused by this issue, and we thank you for your patience with us today. "
Here's how benchmarks started trading after opening bell:
S&P 500 Index: -1.33% or -54.95 points to 4,072.88
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.12% or -380.90 points to 33,679.76
Nasdaq Composite Index: -1.71% or -226.92 points to 13,078.42
