The Fed has been under increasing pressure to act as investors lost faith the U.S. government’s ability to quickly produce a coherent policy response after President Donald Trump addressed the nation Wednesday with few details on fiscal stimulus plans but restrictions on travel from Europe to the U.S. that deepened the sense of alarm.

“President Trump set out to calm everyone’s concerns, and he added fuel to the fire,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of Cresset Capital Management, a Chicago-based wealth-management firm. “Right now, if you look at the technicals, we had finally slipped into what I’d call panic.”

U.S. central bankers delivered an emergency half percentage-point cut last week and were expected to move again when they meet on March 17-18 in Washington, if not sooner, with some economists predicting they could slash rates to zero from 1% to 1.25% at the moment.

“Fed did its part today of helping with market functioning,” said Priya Misra, head of rates strategy at TD Securities. “We still need the fiscal help.”

--With assistance from Elizabeth Stanton and Emily Barrett.

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.

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