The Federal Reserve Board has cut a key interest rate for the second time in a week:
The Federal Reserve cut a key interest rate by half a percentage point today, the second rate cut in nine days, in an aggressive move to try to prevent a recession.
The central bank cut the federal funds rate, the rate at which banks lend to each other, to 3 percent. Combined with a surprise rate cut last week after a massive sell-off on world financial markets, the Fed has now cut the rate by 1.25 percentage points in January, the steepest rate cut in a single month in the nearly 20 years that the bank has been targeting the federal funds rate.
Whether this will be enough to stave off a downturn is unclear, but it seems to be what the markets right now.
