Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action news and analysis.

Good afternoon. Today is Wednesday, September 20th, and I'm your host, Kim Khan with a special Fed

edition of Wall Street lunch. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates on hold at 5.5 percent

to the surprise of nobody on Wall Street. The statement was little changed from July.

Markets had been pricing in a 99% chance of no move after two employment and

CPI reports gave the FOMC breathing room to wait for more data on the progress of tightening.

But that doesn't mean officials are ready to call it quits.

Society general economist Stephen Gallagher says,

Fed officials are unwilling to declare victory in fighting inflation, nor are they willing

to claim a soft landing has been achieved.

Instead, with the inflation rate still well above 2% and the employment market's still tight,

the Fed wants to keep a door open for possible hikes.

With the decision baked in, the market's focus turned to the summary of economic

projections, which include the dot plot of rate projections. The median dot for 2023 stayed at 5.625 percent, still

indicating the possibility of one more quarter-point hike to close out the year.

But the real action was a move higher in the dots for 2024, where the median moved up to 5.125% from 4.65%.

That's taking out two rate cuts, enforcing the higher for longer message many economists were expecting

from a Fed that is still concerned about the tough final stretch in getting core inflation

to the target of 2%. The median FOMC member is looking at 2026 for when inflation reaches those

levels, but also is predicting an economy growing at trend. Importantly, the Fed is feeling

more optimistic, economist Justin Wolfer's

tweeted. The median unemployment forecast fell to 3.8% for 2023 down from 4.1%

...