Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is known for providing clear signals about the central bank’s next interest rate move in order to avoid roiling markets. But Wall Street was mostly clueless this week when it came to predicting how big a rate cut the Fed would deliver on Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve’s decision Wednesday to lower its key interest rate by half a percentage point brought some clarity to the country’s top financial decision-makers, sending stocks surging to all-time highs and finally quieting the “will they,

A Federal Reserve official predicted quarter point rate cuts if data looked ‘fine’. But he also set out a scenario for a pause — or faster reductions.