The Federal Open Market Committee cut the fed funds rate target 50 basis points to a range between 1% and 1.25%, it announced Tuesday.

While economic fundamentals “remain strong,” the panel said in a statement, “the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity.”

As a result, and “in support of achieving its maximum employment and price stability goals,” the panel took the action two weeks before its next scheduled meeting.

“The Committee is closely monitoring developments and their implications for the economic outlook and will use its tools and act as appropriate to support the economy,” the statement said.

The G-7 issued a statement earlier Tuesday reaffirming its “commitment to use all appropriate policy tools to achieve strong, sustainable growth and safeguard against downside risks.”

That “was underwhelming and disappointed many investors,” said Robert R. Johnson, professor of Finance at Heider College of Business of Creighton University. “The Federal Reserve plays a significant role in helping to bolster consumer confidence and its actions do impact the real economy due to the wealth effect. The wealth effect is a behavioral economic theory suggesting that people spend more as the value of their assets rise. The idea is that consumers feel more financially secure and confident about their wealth when their investment portfolios increase in value.”

And while the cut “will not provide a cure for the coronavirus or help ameliorate supply chain issues,” he said, it “may help bolster the financial markets and through the wealth effect will help the underlying economy weather the (hopefully) short-term disruption caused by the coronavirus.”

“The coronavirus has quickly upended global economic expansion and introduced the significant uncertainty of a possible recession,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “Today’s interest rate cut is therefore an appropriate response to changing events.”