Pablo Picasso The Old Guitarist painting

Pablo Picasso The Old Guitarist painting
Pablo Picasso Girl Before a Mirror painting
People stop to view stock prices at the Nasdaq Market Site as news of the sharp rise in stock prices is displayed on a news ticker above them in Times Square in New York, January 3, 2001. The Nasdaq closed up 324.83 to 2616.69.
WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve slashed key interest rates in a shock move on Wednesday and said it would do more if needed to keep the U.S. economy from stalling, electrifying financial markets worried about a looming slump. The move, which came four weeks ahead of the year's first scheduled meeting of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), takes the crucial fed funds overnight bank lending rate to 6 percent. The cut, which was the first half-percentage point reduction in that rate since mid-1992, was decided in a hastily arranged conference call among FOMC members.