Wall Street Fears Hawkish Fed Will Trigger Stock Market Selloff

Not much seems to faze the stock market these days even as risks abound, from war in the Middle East, to trade tensions, to slowing growth. But Wall Street’s biggest fear arrives today when the Federal Reserve meeting ends and Chair Jerome Powell explains the central bank’s outlook.

There’s pretty much no expectation that the Fed will reduce interest rates at this meeting after holding steady in the past three instances. But between the so-called dot plot, which outlines where central bankers think the fed funds rate is headed, and Powell’s press conference after the meeting, traders expect to have a much clearer idea of what they’re thinking.