Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is known for providing clear signals about the central bank’s next interest rate move in order to avoid roiling markets. But Wall Street was mostly clueless this week when it came to predicting how big a rate cut the Fed would deliver on Wednesday.

Most of the U.S. stock market edged lower after the Federal Reserve kicked off its efforts to prevent a recession with a bigger-than-usual cut to interest rates.

Wall Street ticked slightly higher as markets awaited an expected interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the first in more than four years.