Your Evening Briefing: Fed Hike Means Inflation Still Enemy No. 1

The US Federal Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter percentage point and indicated there may be more hikes to come. In doing so, the Fed signaled that, banking turmoil or not, its battle against inflation must go on. Forecasted rate hikes were unchanged, too. Chair Jerome Powell emphasized his belief that the banking system remains resilient, but markets fell as hopes for rate cuts in the near future thinned. As for that turmoil, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Capitol Hill that regulators aren’t looking to provide “blanket” deposit insurance, despite calls from some quarters to raise it beyond the current level of $250,000. Here’s your markets wrap.

Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping announced a deal to continue developing a key atomic technology. It’s an agreement that has the Pentagon on edge given its potential to upset the global balance of nuclear weapons. The announcement followed Xi’s visit to Russia and a flurry of other deals between the authoritarian governments, more closely aligned since Putin invaded Ukraine. But there was one crucial agreement Moscow didn’t get.