The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut a key interest rate for the second time in just over a week, reducing the federal funds rate by a half point, CNN reported.
It signalled that further rate cuts were possible.
The Fed action Wednesday pushed the funds rate to 3%. It followed a three-fourths of a percentage point cut on January 22, a day after financial markets around the world had plummeted on fears that the US economy was heading into a recession.
That decrease had been the biggest one-day move in more than two decades.
The cut was expected to be quickly followed by cuts in banks' prime lending rate, the benchmark rate for millions of consumer and business loans.