The Federal Reserve cut short-term interest rates by 0.5 percentage point on Wednesday. Since then, a key benchmark for borrowing costs in the U.S. has gone…up, instead of down. In recent trading, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.

Today's aggressive rate cut, doubling the widely expected 25 bps reduction, signals deepening concerns about the health of the U.S. economy.

A lower policy rate should translate to cheaper borrowing costs for most kinds of loans while, on average, paychecks are now rising faster than prices