Take a hike

The lead-up to the central bank's announcement was like anticipating reality TV. Would Jay Powell fall short of expectations? Would he be right on the money? Would everyone be mad? 

For what it's worth, stocks certainly initially acted as if Powell made the right move. 

Phil Rosen here, coming to you from New York — let's break it down. 

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1. The Fed made its move yesterday as it raised interest rates by 75 basis points, the largest increase since 1994. 

The hike is meant to combat Friday's 41-year high inflation reading, though Fed Chair Jerome Powell did say that a 75 basis-point hike won't be a common occurrence. 

"The Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 1.5% to 1.75% percent and anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate," the Fed said in a statement.

US stocks — and also bitcoin — turned higher as Powell's presser got underway. Each of the major indexes gained after the announcement, with the Dow rallying as much as 500 points, or 1.4%, before Wednesday's closing bell. However, the latest market moves suggest these rallies were short-lived.

The decision by the central bank is set to make mortgages, car loans, credit-card debt, and other kinds of borrowing more expensive, part of the Fed's attempt to take some of the money contributing to uncomfortably high inflation out of the economy. 

"The more aggressive stance can still be consistent with a softish landing for the economy, but the path is getting narrower," wrote Barry Gilbert, a strategist for LPL Financial. 

You can listen to me talk about the Fed rate hike on today's episode of The Refresh from Insider.

In other news:

2. Crypto is in a tailspin — but learning about the landscape and becoming a smarter investor can help. Fifteen leading experts recommended these 27 books to anyone who wants to better understand digital currencies. 

3. Two real estate investing veterans explained why they're sitting on over $1 million in cash and poised to buy property despite rising interest rates. "Effectively, rates for me have gone up 50%," one of them explained. "But for any sound investor, it's not what something costs — it's what value is there."

4. This investor lost his life savings in Terra USD after putting $20,000 in it. Now he lives paycheck to paycheck and is wary to invest until there's more crypto regulation. Read how the stablecoin collapse impacted his investing journey.

5. The crash in the Nasdaq is looking a lot like the bursting of the 2000 dot-com bubble. But the scary thing? In 2000 it fell for two more years and didn't fully recover until 2015.

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This newsletter was curated by Phil Rosen. Thoughts or questions? Sound off in the comments section below.