NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is "verging on" a credibility problem after Tuesday's latest actions on benchmark lending rates confused markets, Robert Kowit, senior portfolio manager at Federated Investors, said on Wednesday.
The U.S. central bank lowered its federal funds rate and discount rate by 25 basis points each on Tuesday, a less aggressive action than many had hoped for to stem a global liquidity crunch.
"I thought that (rate move) in the context of what the market was expecting, wasn't enough," Kowit said at the Reuters Investment Outlook 2008 Summit in New York.
Kowit said seemed to be "a sense of confusion and lack of direction" at the Fed.
(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)
(Reporting by Ros Krasny)
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