Fed meeting recap: Powell pretty much rules out a hike as the central bank's next move

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said it was unlikely that the central bank's next move will be a rate hike. The comment spurred a rally for the three major averages, with the Dow surging more than 500 points in its session high. Central bank policymakers kept rates steady at the conclusion of their May meeting, holding at a range of 5.25% to 5.5%.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said regardless of the upcoming U.S. presidential election this year, the central bank continues to make its interest rate decisions independently — and that any way otherwise could result in negative consequences.

"It's hard enough to get the economics right here," Powell said. "These are difficult things, and if we were to take on a whole other set of factors and use that as a new filter, it would reduce the likelihood we'd actually get the economics right."

The pending election "just isn't part of our thinking," Powell added. "It's not what we're hired to do."

— Hakyung Kim

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stressed that the move to slow the pace of reducing its balance sheet is not being done to provide accommodation to the economy or be less restrictive.

"It really is to ensure that the process of shrinking the balance sheet down to where we want to get it is a smooth one and doesn't wind up with financial market turmoil the way it did the last time we did this, and the only other time we've ever done this," he said.

— Michelle Fox

Last week's GDP report that showed slowing overall growth but solid price increases raised some concern about the U.S. entering a period of "stagflation," but Fed Chair Jerome Powell downplayed that idea on Wednesday.

"I don't really understand where that's coming from," Powell said.

The central bank chief