The largest initial development out of Wednesday's policy statement focused on a change in the wording of the last sentence in the first paragraph of the Fed.
If that feels like a fine slice, it is.
On Wednesday, the Fed said about inflation: “Inflation remains a bit high.”
In December, the Central Bank had said: “Inflation has made progress towards the committee's 2 per cent objective but remains high.”
The markets were not well received to remove the phrase “Made Progress”, with stocks moving to session lows shortly after release.
This reading suggested that this language change is a sign of a lack of confidence from the Fed that inflation will continue to move lower.
About 45 minutes later, Powell pushed back on that idea, referring to the change as “language cleaning” rather than planning to send a signal.
In response, stocks bounced off their lows.
Even before this question and answer, Wall Street's economists argued similar to what Powell set out.
“Markets have over -reacted to the small statement changes,” wrote Samuel Tombs, the US chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, in e -mail.
“Inflation is simply described as a remaining 'somewhat exalted,' where previously thought it had 'made progress towards the committee's 2 percent objective,' but we suspect that reflects Disappointment on recent data.