The much awaited but essentially useless FOMC announcement is out of the bag. The Fed is on hold, as everyone knew.

Suggestions of hawkishness based on today’s Core CPI Reading were rather ridiculous. The Fed reduced its inflation target to 1.2% for the year, down from 1.6%.

The Fed also cut the number of hikes it expected to make from four in December to two today.

Let’s track the statement changes since last month.

Fed Tracker

The Wall Street Journal has a Fed Tracker Utility that highlights changes since last month. This is how it looks.

There were no other changes except voting members and dissents. In a meaningless action, Esther L George prefered a hike to 0.75%.