Page One
Briefing.com Summary:
*The Fed will cut rates by 25 basis points today. What comes after that is the real question.
*NVIDIA is breaking out after its GTC Conference and will have a $5 trillion+ market capitalization.
*Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft will report earnings results after the close.
There aren't as many news cycles as busy as the one that is spinning today. Just about everything the stock market cares about is in the wash today.
Specifically, there are a ton of earnings reports, an FOMC announcement at 2:00 p.m. ET that will include a 25-basis-point rate cut in the target range for the fed funds rate to 3.75% to 4.00%, talk of a trade deal between the U.S. and South Korea, and glad tidings being espoused by the U.S. and China ahead of Thursday's meeting between President Trump and President Xi.
Oh, and maybe the thing that matters most to the market (a market-cap weighted one anyway), NVIDIA (NVDA) is up another 3.5% on some breakout price action following yesterday's GTC Conference. That move will take it above a $5 trillion market cap.
Currently, the S&P 500 futures are up 16 points and are trading 0.3% above fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are up 98 points and are trading 0.4% above fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are up 109 points and are trading 0.3% above fair value.
Dow component Caterpillar (CAT), with a piddly $250 billion market cap, is up a hefty 5.8% in pre-market trading after its well-received earnings report, which is more than offsetting a 1.3% decline in fellow component Boeing (BA) after its earnings report. Verizon (VZ) and Visa (V) are rounding things out for Dow reporters, with the former up 4.0% and the latter down 1.1%.
There are too many other reports to mention fully here, but companies like Booking Holdings (BKNG) and Seagate Technology (STX) are among the bigger winners, while others like Fiserv (FI) and Generac (GNRC) are among the biggest losers.
Be sure to check out Briefing.com's Earnings Results Calendar for the full rundown of companies that have reported their results since yesterday's close. There, you will also see that Alphabet (GOOG), Meta Platforms (META), and Microsoft (MSFT) are set to report their results after today's close.
Simply put, the market is expecting nothing but good and better news from these companies, leaving virtually no room for disappointment.
The same can be said of the Fed. Market participants not only want a 25-basis-point cut today, but they also want to walk away from Fed Chair Powell's press conference with a sense that another 25-basis-point cut is on the way in December.
They might have to settle for the cut today and some de facto loosening offered by a pronouncement that the Fed is going to end its quantitative tightening campaign. Fed Chair Powell, for his part, may feel hard pressed to signal another rate cut in December given the dearth of government data during the shutdown, with the exception of a September CPI report that showed total and core CPI up 3.0% year-over-year against a 2.0% inflation target.
The market, however, has been unperturbed by that. The S&P 500 is up 2.3% since the CPI report, while the inflation-sensitive 10-yr note yield is down one basis point to 3.99%. NVIDIA, meanwhile, is up 10.4% (not including today's gain). We need say no more.
