A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on December 13, 2023 in New York City, USA, as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's press conference after the Fed's interest rate announcement is shown on the screen.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
Stocks were little changed Monday as Wall Street focused on earnings reports from some of the biggest tech companies and the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy decisions.
of Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P500 Stay just above the flat line, Nasdaq Composite.
This week is the busiest week of earnings season, with 19% of the S&P 500 reporting earnings.Megacap technology name microsoft, apple, meta, Amazon and alphabet Companies that are part of the core group of large technology companies that have led this year's gathering will announce their results. Investors will also watch for several Dow stocks to report quarterly profits. boeing and Merck. iRobot's stock price plummeted more than 14% following reports that Amazon would prolong acquisition negotiations for the company.
Meanwhile, the Federal Open Market Committee begins a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday. Investors are almost certain the central bank will keep interest rates unchanged. Traders in the federal funds futures market believe there is a nearly 97% chance that the Fed will not cut rates at its next meeting, according to CME Group.
“The Fed no longer has to worry about an overheating economy fueling inflation, because we're literally seeing the opposite,” said Sonu Varghese, global macro strategist at Carson Group. “Inflation is down. In terms of portfolio allocation, that means we're overweight equities.”
To be sure, the Fed is likely to cut interest rates later this year, but “perhaps it could lead to higher capital prices; [it will] Probably not as much as the market expects. ”
