It wasn’t supposed to be like this. After raising interest rates by 0.25 of a percentage point to 4.75 per cent as widely expected on Wednesday night, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell was supposed to put on his hawk costume and talk the market out of its New Year bullishness, emphasising how a rising sharemarket would make it harder for the Fed to get inflation back down.

Instead, Powell gave the market all the excuse it needed to keep fighting the Fed.