Stocks were little changed Wednesday afternoon, remaining within the day’s trading range after the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s June policy meeting. The Fed at that meeting raised the fed funds rate by 75 basis points, or three-quarters of a percentage point — its largest hike since 1994. were resolute about the need to continue to hike their benchmark policy interest rate despite seeing downside risks to economic growth, according to minutes of the June policy meeting released Wednesday. The minutes said Fed officials “recognized that policy firming could slow the pace of economic growth for a time, but they saw the return of inflation to 2% as critical to achieving maximum employment on a sustained basis” and that policy makers “judged that an increase of 50 or 75 bp would likely be appropriate at the next meeting.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 37 points, or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 flipped between small gains and losses and the Nasdaq Composite was up less than 0.1%. Treasury yields remained higher on the day but little changed from levels seen ahead of the release of the minutes.
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