us stocks finished mixed in volatile trade wednesday after recovering initial losses seen when the federal reserve held its benchmark interest rate unchanged but signaled the monetary tightening cycle is not over and more rate hikes are still on the table this year stocks ended higher tuesday with the sp 500 and nasdaq composite logging their highest finishes since april 2022 us stock indexes ended mostly higher on wednesday after the federal reserve announced its decision to hold its benchmark fedfunds rate unchanged at a range of 5 to 525 but projected further rate rises were likely to lower inflation holding the target range steady at this meeting allows the fomc to assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy the federal open market committee or fomc said in a statement wednesday however the feds dotplot forecast showed the central bank may lift rates by another 50 basis points to a range of 55575 according to the summary of economic projections todays decision to pause on policy actions was consistent with recent labor market and inflation data but with the economy proving resilient downside risks from banking stress fading debt limit uncertainty behind us and inflation still hovering above target we are unsurprised that the fed has also hinted that additional policy firming may be warranted said whitney watson global cohead of fixed income at goldman sachs asset management treasury yields jumped following the rate announcement with the 2year treasury yield  the most sensitive to policy expectations rose 13 basis points to 4707 from 4694 on tuesday the rate settled at its highest level since march 9 according to dow jones market data chairman jerome powell said in a news conference that a decision about next fomc meeting in july hasnt yet been made but he signaled more rate hikes may be coming later this year as nearly all policymakers view further hikes this year appropriate he also noted that a key measure of inflation remains sticky and that prior fed forecasts for a big decline in price pressures have repeatedly been wrong the fed statement and projections were very hawkish but powells presser was a bit optimistic regarding their inflation fight and noncommittal for a july rate hike wrote edward moya senior market analyst at oanda in emailed commentary the sp 500 recovered initial losses as traders believe the fed is becoming a bit overly aggressive on what will be needed to get inflation all the way down traders in fedfund futures traders initially saw a 711 chance of the federal reserve hiking rates in july which would bring the central banks benchmark rate to a range of 525 to 550 according to the cme fedwatch tool however market participants brought down their hike expectations to 645 as powells failure to commit to july hike undercut the statement anthony saglimbene chief market strategist at ameriprise financial said powell had to wrangle the committee to get them to agree for a pause but also expressed through the summary of economic projections and the statement that the fed is still committed in fighting inflation they threaded the needle exactly the way they needed to today saglimbene told marketwatch in a phone interview we all want to see the inflation trend continue to go down but i think we should recognize that in the last few months the core inflation is flatlined and if thats the case they the fed might have to act again he said i think the optionality that they left themselves is very important and the market can digest that and be okay with that optionality for now in us economic data on wednesday the producerprice index showed a fall in wholesale inflation of 03 in may the third drop in the past four months economists polled by the wall street journal had forecast a 01 decline in the producerprice index a separate measure of wholesale prices that strips out volatile food and energy costs was flat last month the government said the increase in these socalled core prices over the past year decelerated to 28 from 33 marking the smallest increase since february 2021 this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal