Fed Holds Rates Steady as War in Iran Upends the Economic Outlook

Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, emphasized the high degree of uncertainty stemming from the conflict as he acknowledged the potential for surging energy prices to lift inflation and dent growth.Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair. “The thing I really want to emphasize is that nobody knows,” he said on Wednesday regarding the war in Iran’s effects on the economy.