Who could have possibly seen this coming?
The Fed just cut rates for the first time since December, and everyone reacted exactly how you’d expect… like my 7-year-old self at Chuck E. Cheese when the skee-ball machine starts spitting out free tickets (the closest I’ve ever been to generational wealth).
The Dow hit an all-time high (+294, up 0.6%). The S&P 500 dipped (-0.3%). And the Nasdaq got shallacked 0.7% after tech traders realized Jerome Powell wasn’t about to start tossing free money out of a helicopter again (insert sad face emoji).
As for the official deets… the Fed snipped rates by 25 bps, bringing the overnight range down to 4%-4.25%. They also signaled two more cuts this year… which was pretty much the “spoiler alert” everyone already read in the FedWatch tool. But hey, just because we expected it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be grateful right?
But hey, for the first time since Trump found out about his alleged Taj Mohal Fed HQ renovation… Powell & Co. didn’t panic, didn’t over-deliver, and basically gave the doctor (Wall Street) exactly what it ordered. A boring, quarter-point appetizer with the promise of two more by Christmas.
Unfortunately 2026 looks stingier. The dot plot shows only one cut next year versus the three markets were pricing in. So don’t get too drunk on cheap money fantasies.
Everyone let out a huge sigh of relief after the Fed finally admitted what everyone at the unemployment office already knows… the labor market is cooling. Job gains have slowed, unemployment is creeping up, and “stagflation” just got quietly put out to pasture like Joe Biden during his entire Presidency. That’s why Powell shifted the Fed’s focus from fighting inflation (still “somewhat elevated”) to babysitting jobs. It’s like he decided to stop worrying about the house being on fire because the kids just swallowed Legos.
Anyways, let’s get into why you’re really here… STONKS.
After hearing the Lyft news, investors went full “woo-hoo girls in Nashville” when they found out Waymo robotaxis will roll out on the app next year. As a former Nashville resident myself, I feel for everyone on Broadway. American Express caught a nice bump (the legal kind), up 2.7%, because plastic always shines a little brighter when the cost of money drops (swipe now, explain to your credit score later).
As for Jensen, the unlucky streak continues… Nvidia fell 2.5% after China reportedly told its biggest tech firms to stop buying the special AI chips Nvidia built for them. Tough scene when Beijing ghosts you after years of late-night GPU hookups. That selloff spilled over into the rest of Big Tech with Alphabet, Amazon, and Palantir, all in the red. I guess rate cuts don’t help if China bans your chips (go figure).
On the other side of the tape, Zillow ripped 3.5% after Bernstein upgraded it, but let’s be honest… this isn’t about “execution” or “earnings quality.” It’s the same trade every time the Fed cuts: people convince themselves their salary can stretch into a seven-figure mortgage.
Let’s not kid ourselves, this wasn’t some shock-and-awe Fed moment. This was Powell bunting instead of swinging for the fences. The economy isn’t totally cooked, but job growth is coming to a standstill, inflation is still sticky, and 2026 cuts look like they’ll be stingier than my grandpa tipping at Cracker Barrel (which, by the way, reports earnings tonight for the first time since that cursed logo scandal).
In short… the Dow loved it. Tech hated it. And the rest of us? We’re just waiting to see if Powell can actually thread the needle… or if we’re about to get a repeat of 2008’s “choose-your-own-adventure” nightmare.
Oh, and if you’ve been riding along with our free Stock Prophet Daily Watchlist… props to you. $CDT popped 15% and gave you an easy win. Not the biggest haul we’ve ever called, but green is green. Check back on the Stocks.News app tomorrow morning… we’ll have fresh tickers ready to roll.
If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.
At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Google and Amazon as mentioned in the article.
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