FACTBOX: Fed intermeeting rate changes since 1994

(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve on Tuesday slashed the benchmark federal funds target rate in a surprise intermeeting decision as it said the economic outlook was weakening and broader financial market conditions continued to deteriorate.

Rate changes between regularly scheduled Federal Open Market Committee meetings are rare, but they have occurred in the past during market turmoil.

The following is a chronology of the Fed rate changes that occurred during intermeeting periods since 1994.

2008

January 22 - The FOMC cut the federal funds target rate by 75 basis points to 3.5 percent, the lowest level since September 2005.

It also cut the discount rate by three quarters percentage point to 4.00 percent.

2007

August 17 - The FOMC left the federal funds rate target unchanged, but cut the discount rate by 50 basis points to 5.75 percent in a bid to provide easier funding to banks.

2001

September 17 - The FOMC cut the federal funds rate target by 50 basis points to 3 percent. It also said the Fed would continue to supply "unusually large volumes of liquidity" as needed in wake of the financial fallout from the September 11 attacks.

April 18 - The FOMC lowered the federal funds rate by 50 basis points to 4.5 percent and said risks were weighted toward economic weakness.

January 3 - In the economic downturn following the bursting of the "dotcom" bubble in early 2000, the FOMC enacted an emergency rate cut of 50 basis points, bringing the federal funds rate to 6 percent. That came only seven weeks after the FOMC said risks were weighted mainly toward inflation, though it had shifted its view in December and said risks were weighted toward economic weakness, clearing the way for a near-term rate cut.

The January emergency rate cut was the first rate reduction in a series that eventually brought the federal funds rate down to 1.75 percent by the end of the year. By June 2003, the federal funds rate was down to 1 percent, the lowest since 1958.

1998

October 15 - In the wake of the Russian financial crisis and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, the FOMC cut by 25 basis points, bringing the federal funds rate to 5 percent. It said "growing caution by lenders" and "unsettled conditions in financial markets" were likely to restrain growth. The intermeeting move was the second of three consecutive rate cuts that year.

1994

April 18 - In a telephone conference, the FOMC decided to tighten policy rather than wait until its next regular meeting in May as "financial markets now appeared to be less likely to overreact to adverse developments or to policy actions". It raised the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 3.25 percent. The Fed kept raising rates until February 1995.