Sitharaman, Powell toss the ball in Das’s court Wednesday night, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided to maintain the status quo on policy rates for the fourth successive review. The Committee reiterated that it “does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward two percent.” The Committee however made it quite clear that any rate hike from the present level is no longer on the table. In the post-meeting press meeting, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell indicated that FOMC may not consider rate cuts in its next meeting in March 2024. The market is thus expecting a rate cut in May 2024. In another development, the Union Finance Minister, Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, presented an interim budget for the fiscal year 2024-25. Two notable features of the interim budget were (i) Nominal GDP growth projection for FY25 at 10.5%, implying a well-controlled inflation environment; and (ii) F...