Indexes

Wednesday cost the Dow Jones Industrial Average 1,153.18 points, or 2.19%, its worst session since April 2025. The S&P 500 fell 1.52% to 7,316.15 and the Nasdaq Composite 1.74% to 24,442.94, and the bond market set the direction: the Federal Reserve held its target range at 3.50% to 3.75%, three officials voted to raise it, and long-dated Treasuries were sold anyway on the view that the committee is moving too slowly. Futures have taken back part of it.

Asia had the more interesting night. Seoul opened sharply higher and could not hold it, which left the region without the clean rebound the tape looked set for at 2:00 am ET.

The FTSE 100 has added 0.21% and the DAX 0.10%, with the Euro Stoxx 50 up 0.84%. Paris is carrying the region on its own.

In the News

Rates, FX, Commodities

The shape of the curve was the event, not its level. Two-year yields fell four basis points while the 30-year rose more than nine, a market comfortable with the next two years and wary of the next thirty. All four figures below are Wednesday's closes.

Crude did the moving, and downward. West Texas Intermediate at $83.75 is 0.84% lower and Brent at $90.20 is off 0.60%, both handing back a slice of Wednesday's surge, which carried WTI from $79.26 to $84.46 inside one session. Oil is the asset with real physical exposure to a widening Gulf war, and oil is the one that fell, so traders are pricing the risk of an interruption to supply rather than an interruption itself. Gold has added 0.34% overnight to $4,139.90 after a far larger advance during Wednesday's session, and remains 22% below January's record close of $5,318.40.

Technicals

Distance from the averages is what the index charts show. The S&P 500 closed at 7,316.15, beneath a 20-day of 7,483.11 and a 50-day of 7,468.10, with the 200-day at 7,015.51 sitting 4.1% lower as the first structural mark. The Nasdaq 100 at 27,192.31 is 11.3% under its 52-week high of 30,660.60, a correction by the usual definition, with its 200-day 2.7% away at 26,471.69. Small caps joined them on Wednesday: the Russell 2000 at 2,906.31 gave up a 50-day of 2,936.39 it was holding on Tuesday. That leaves the Dow as the last one standing, and barely: it finished 1.45 points above its own 50-day of 51,592.69.

The long end has less overhead than at any point in almost two decades. Its 5.193% close cleared the July high of 5.17% from the 23rd, which leaves no recent reference above it, while the 10-year at 4.657% sits in the upper half of a July range that ran from 4.48% to 4.71%.

Microsoft (MSFT) hourly: $426.99 in the pre-market, a 9.33% gap above Wednesday's close of $390.54.

Breakouts & Breakdowns

Breakouts

Microsoft (MSFT) — $426.99 clears the 20-day at $389.81 and the 50-day at $397.91 in a single gap. The 200-day at $434.13 sits 1.7% higher and is the last average still overhead.

Starbucks (SBUX) — $111.51 takes out a 52-week high of $108.37 and leaves the chart with no overhead resistance. The 20-day at $104.64 is the first support back.

Breakdowns

Tesla (TSLA) — Wednesday's close of $298.32 was a fresh 52-week low, 24.4% under a 50-day of $394.64. The pre-market print of $302.50 lifts the shares four dollars off that low.

Qualcomm (QCOM) — $146.89 is 13.1% below the 200-day at $169.09 and 26.7% under the 50-day at $200.51. Next down is the 52-week low of $124.07, another 15.5% away.

Starbucks (SBUX) daily, with $111.51 quoted this morning against a twelve-month high of $108.37.

Tesla (TSLA) at $302.50 pre-market, four dollars off the twelve-month low set on Wednesday.

Top Movers

Gainers

Microsoft (MSFT), +9.33% to $426.99. Fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of $4.81 a share against $3.65 a year earlier, on revenue up about 18%. Azure passed $100 billion of annual revenue for the first time, up 41% for the fiscal year, with quarterly growth accelerating to 43% from 40% in the March quarter. Chief financial officer Amy Hood then guided the September quarter to 45% Azure growth, ahead of a consensus near 41%. Alphabet was punished last week for what its capital spending did to cash flow. Microsoft carries comparable spending and a cloud business growing faster, and received the opposite verdict.

Lam Research (LRCX), +7.79% to $272.00. June-quarter revenue of $6.72 billion grew 30% from a year earlier, earnings of $1.82 a share beat the $1.69 consensus, and gross margin of 52% was the company's best in twenty years. September guidance of $8.1 billion, give or take $400 million, is roughly a billion dollars above where analysts were, and memory-chip revenue doubled from the March quarter on storage demand from AI systems. Even after this morning's move the shares are 19.3% under a 50-day average of $337.13.

Starbucks (SBUX), +7.08% to $111.51. Global comparable store sales rose 7.9% on 4.2% transaction growth, against the 5.7% Wall Street expected, and full-year earnings guidance went to $2.55-$2.65 a share from $2.25-$2.45. That is a fourth consecutive quarter of same-store sales growth under Brian Niccol, and the first the market has paid for properly.

Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG), +5.87% to $36.25. Comparable sales rose 2.2%, the best in six quarters, revenue grew 9.3% to $3.33 billion and the full-year outlook went up. The share price looks small because Chipotle split its stock fifty-for-one in 2024; the company is worth about $44 billion.

Losers

Meta Platforms (META), -8.56% to $535.50. Revenue of $60.8 billion beat the $60.17 billion consensus and grew 28%, but earnings of $6.18 a share came in far under the $7.10 to $7.23 the street carried, and third-quarter revenue guidance of $62.5 billion landed below the $63.15 billion expected. Two items account for most of the shortfall: $2.4 billion for legal contingencies and $1.2 billion of severance. Total costs rose 55% to $42.0 billion, far faster than revenue, which is the line that matters for a company asking investors to fund a 2026 capital budget topping out at $145 billion. The shares now sit within 1.9% of a 52-week low of $525.72.

Qualcomm (QCOM), -5.65% to $146.89. Revenue of $9.9 billion hit the ceiling of the company's own guidance while adjusted earnings of $2.21 a share fell short, and the outlook was light on what management called unprecedented memory-industry pressure in smartphones. Chief executive Cristiano Amon said Qualcomm will raise chip prices from September 1, and doubled the 2029 target for revenue outside handsets to $40 billion. Investors took the near-term margin problem and left the 2029 target where they found it.

Arm Holdings (ARM), -3.84% to $216.25. Record first-quarter revenue of $1.29 billion rose 22%, royalties of $715 million were a quarterly record, and data-centre royalty revenue more than doubled from a year ago. Then full-year royalty growth guidance came down to the high teens from 20%, on a smartphone market Arm expects to shrink by double digits, and that one sentence outweighed everything above it.

Meta Platforms (META) daily: a fourth month of lower highs, now with $535.50 quoted pre-market.

Macro Calendar

Core PCE is the measure the Fed names in its own policy statement, which makes 8:30 am the morning's only genuine variable. A 0.2% month with the headline measure falling to 3.6% from 4.1% is what Investing.com's calendar carries into it, though some desks are as low as 0.1%; anything firmer moves September pricing. Second-quarter growth and weekly claims arrive in the same release window and will be read second.

Earnings Today

Two names before the bell. Mastercard is the read on consumer spending, with consensus at $4.78 a share on $9.08 billion of revenue, and Shell reports into a barrel that has moved 6% in either direction this week; its shares are 1.65% higher at $89.84 ahead of the release.

The evening finishes the megacap slate. Amazon is modelled at $1.81 a share with North America segment revenue near $113.8 billion, and Amazon Web Services growth is the item analysts have been marking up into the report; the shares are 3.24% higher at $234.00 this morning on Microsoft's cloud numbers. Apple's consensus is $1.89 a share on $108.86 billion of revenue, against $1.57 and $94.04 billion in the same quarter last year, with gross margin the pressure point after memory-chip prices rose and Apple lifted prices on Macs and iPads in response. Apple has beaten the street's earnings number for eight quarters running. Both conference calls begin at 5:00 pm ET.

Drivers

1. Three regional Fed presidents wanted a quarter-point increase yesterday and lost the vote 9 to 3. This morning's inflation figure is therefore a referendum on which side read June correctly, and September pricing will move on it considerably more than today's index level will. The statement language rather than the rate line is what has to be repriced.
2. Apple and Amazon close the week's megacap reports, and they are answering different questions. Amazon has to show cloud growth that justifies a capital budget the market has stopped applauding, and last night's Azure acceleration raised that bar rather than lowered it. Apple has a cost problem instead of a spending one: memory prices went up, Apple put its own prices up on Macs and iPads in response, and the profit-margin line will show whether one covered the other. Both land after 4:00 pm ET, which leaves Friday's open holding the answer for $7.4 trillion of market value.
3. Semiconductors have the most to prove at 9:30 am. Chip investors start with a 1.75% cushion, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF quoted at $513.05 after a 4.79% loss on Wednesday, and both Lam Research and Applied Materials (AMAT) are up more than 4% pre-market. Seoul spent its own morning surrendering a 5% rally, which is the pattern this group has to break. Even with the bounce the fund sits 23.3% below its 52-week high of $668.91.

Five closes in a row beneath both short-term averages, with State Street's S&P 500 fund (SPY) quoted at $733.09.

A month of daily closes on the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), quoted at $668.51 before the open.