At the Saudi Arabia "Future Investment Initiative" conference on Tuesday, global financial titans hinted that the market's expectations for a Federal Reserve rate cut may be overly optimistic.

So far this year, the Federal Reserve has only cut rates once in September, by 50 basis points. The Federal Reserve will hold two interest rate decisions on November 7th and December 18th this year.

When asked if they believed the Federal Reserve would cut rates twice more this year, no one raised their hand in a panel discussion that included executives from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered, Carlyle, Apollo Global Management, and State Street. Most believe that the Federal Reserve may cut rates once more by the end of 2024.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said at the forum that he expects the Federal Reserve to cut rates by at least 25 basis points this year.

Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick said that the days of easy money and zero interest rates are over. Interest rates will be higher and will be challenged globally. Geopolitics is back and will be part of the challenges for the next few decades.

Since 2022, suppressed interest rates and loose monetary policy have been in the rearview mirror. At that time, after the Federal Reserve cut rates close to zero to combat the pandemic, it raised the benchmark rate by about 500 basis points over an 18-month period.

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Pick talked about the challenges faced by listed companies during that period. He said, "We went through the pandemic and zero interest rate stimulus, so small companies could go public without much of a business plan, and then we went through about 18 months of tough fear, with almost nothing happening."

In September, the Federal Reserve cut the benchmark rate by 50 basis points, the first rate cut since March 2020, marking a turning point in its management of the US economy and inflation prospects.

In a report in late September, strategists from JPMorgan and Fitch Ratings expected the US to make two more rate cuts by the end of 2024 and expected such rate cuts to continue into 2025.

Several Wall Street CEOs seem to disagree with this view, citing ongoing inflation expectations.At an FII panel meeting held earlier on Tuesday, guests including the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Carlyle, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered Bank, and State Street Bank were asked to raise their hands if they believed the Federal Reserve would implement two more rate cuts this year. As a result, none of the panel members raised their hands.