Morning Market Briefing 10/28
3 Things To Know For Today
1. Major Data Points: It's Fed day. The FOMC wraps its two-day meeting this afternoon, and rates are expected to hold at 3.75%-4.00%, so the market will be parsing Chair Kevin Warsh's statement and press conference for any signal on further hikes (futures were pricing roughly an 80% chance of one in December coming into the week). The calendar is otherwise quiet after Tuesday's batch: Consumer Confidence jumped to 91.7 from a revised 84.2 (forecast was 80.5), durable goods rose 1.8% in line with forecasts, and New Home Sales came in at 676K against a 649K forecast.
2. Other Major Financial News: Microsoft and Alphabet both report after the close, with traders watching closely for any crack in the AI-spending story (consensus is roughly $4.71 EPS for Microsoft, and $3.00 EPS on about $127.9 billion in revenue for Alphabet). Boeing fell about 10% Tuesday after missing estimates and cutting its full-year delivery target, and Amazon and Intel report Thursday. Chip stocks bounced hard Tuesday after Broadcom arranged $63 billion in bank financing tied to Anthropic's chip purchases, keeping the AI funding debate front and center.
3. Market-Adjacent News (Iran War): Direct U.S.-Iran talks remain stalled, though messages are still passing through intermediaries. Senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan met Iranian leaders in Tehran Monday and agreed to keep talking, with no concrete announcements. Trump says the U.S. controls the strait and a U.S. naval blockade has reportedly cost Iran at least $25 billion in oil revenue, while a reported attack on a Saudi refinery pushed crude higher again this morning (Brent about $115, WTI about $101.60). With the midterms days away, commentators expect the period afterward to be especially tense.
Yesterday's Price Action
Tuesday was a tech-led rebound with a lopsided tape underneath: the Nasdaq jumped 1.18% to 26,478, the S&P 500 gained 0.60% to 7,722.60, and the Russell 2000 rose 1.16% to 2,819, while the Dow finished essentially flat (+0.03% to 52,378) with Boeing's roughly 10% drop acting as a drag. Chip names did the heavy lifting on the Broadcom financing news, and a strong Consumer Confidence beat helped risk appetite. The 10-year Treasury yield held near 4.99% and the 2-year edged up to about 4.73%. Futures are mixed this morning (Nasdaq +0.30%, S&P +0.10%, Dow -0.19%) as NQ and ES sit in wait-and-see mode ahead of the Fed and two of the biggest earnings reports of the quarter.
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Quote Of The Day
“Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria.”
– John Templeton
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