The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a half-percentage point Wednesday and is projecting another half-percentage point cut over the course of its remaining two meetings this year, signaling a faster pace of monetary stimulus than analysts had been expecting over the summer.

We concluded that this was the right thing for the economy and the people we serve,” the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, said, referring to the central bank’s decision to cut interest rates by half a point.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s decision to trim rates by a larger amount than most analysts anticipated until just a few days ago moved the central bank unwaveringly into a new phase