Fidelity Investments provides an informative graph depicting their estimation of major world economies' status within the cyclical business cycle. The FOMC can only do so much to influence the overall direction of the economy with rate cuts; they may even be too late to keep the US economy out of contraction. The risk/reward in the equities market is asymmetrical, and I keep a lid on buying stocks here. The best time to buy stocks is when the economy is in contraction.