THE US Federal Reserve continues to stress that its lengthy battle against inflation is far from won, but investors in the current bull market are still ignoring those warnings.

The US stock market was initially shocked into a selloff by what most Wall Street strategists called a “hawkish pause”, but recovered late in the session, grasping at dovish straws in a press conference on Wednesday (Jun 14) from Fed chairman Jerome Powell.

At the end of the two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the US central bank left interest rates unchanged in a range of 5 per cent to 5.25 per cent – after 10 straight rate increases – but unexpectedly put two additional rate increases on the calendar.