History shows US Fed pause may require more than an SOS from stock market

The lessons of the dot-com crash in 2000 and the global financial crisis in 2008 have exposed the risks of keeping rates too low for too long

The U.S. stocks sell-off has stirred memories of past market turbulence as investors begin to question the viability of the Federal Reserve’s tightening path. While it’s come to the market’s rescue in the past, it hasn’t done so recently without a distress signal from the economy.

A well-telegraphed increase this December is seen as a near certainty and U.S. economic growth remains above trend, but doubts are building over the three quarter-point rate hikes that central bank officials had projected for 2019 in September. With stocks now down more than 10 percent from their intraday peak that month, the prospect of