STORY: U.S. stocks ended well off earlier highs on Wednesday, with the Dow losing nearly four-tenths of a percent, the S&P 500 dipping fractionally, and the Nasdaq notching a slight gain.
The Federal Reserve concluded its July policy meeting on Wednesday by keeping interest rates unchanged, as expected.
But for the first time in more than 30 years, two members of the voting committee dissented, with both seeking an immediate rate cut.
Nancy Tengler is CEO and chief investment officer at Laffer Tengler Investments.
“I actually think it's it's kind of refreshing that the groupthink at the Fed has always bothered me, where it's a unanimous vote every every meeting. I think what what it's setting up is a debate for the future and maybe around Jackson Hole. But certainly there are many, at least in my position as investors, professional investors, that think the Fed should begin cutting. They are laser-focused on tariffs, that is one, it's not even really their mandate, though they're tying it to inflation. But we think that there's a number of reasons that the Fed should be thinking about cutting.”
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, however, chilled expectations of a September rate cut by saying it was too soon to tell whether the economic data would support such a move.
Later in the day, markets turned their focus to earnings from two members of the Magnificent 7.
Shares of Meta soared 10% in extended trading after the Facebook parent forecast third-quarter revenue well above Wall Street expectations and raised the lower end of its capital expenses forecast for the year.
And shares of Microsoft rose more than 7% in extended trading after handily beating Wall Street's revenue expectations.
The tech giant reported blockbuster growth at its Azure cloud-computing business and growing returns from its massive bets on AI.
Investor focus now turns to Amazon and Apple ahead of their earnings results on Thursday.
