Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:
1. Fed shed
All three major indexes closed lower Wednesday after the Federal Reserve announced its decision to hold rates steady. The S&P 500 shed 0.47% while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.51% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 136.83 points, or 0.31%. Shares of Nvidia also ended the day lower, slipping 4% after climbing back from its DeepSeek-fueled plummet Monday. Stock futures were higher Thursday, as investors digested a round of big tech earnings results. Follow live market updates.
2. D.C. plane crash
A view shows Reagan Washington National Airport, as seen from Arlington, after American Eagle flight 5342 collided with a helicopter while approaching Reagan Washington National Airport and crashed in the Potomac River, Virginia, U.S. Jan. 29, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
An American Airlines regional jet collided midair with a Black Hawk military helicopter Wednesday night, moments before the airplane was set to land at Washington D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The plane was arriving from Wichita, Kansas, and had 64 people on board. Rescuers raced to recover passengers from the freezing Potomac River, but officials declined to address casualties in an early-morning press conference Thursday. The collision appears to be the worst air disaster on U.S. soil in more than 15 years.
3. No surprises
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a press conference following a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on interest rate policy, in Washington, U.S., Jan. 29, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
4. Microsoft, Meta and Tesla, oh my!
A view of the Microsoft headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux, a suburb southwest of Paris, France on January 13, 2025.
Mohamad Salaheldin Abdelg Alsayed | Anadolu | Getty Images
5. Billion-dollar backer
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, accompanied by U.S. President Donald Trump, Oracle CTO Larry Ellison (R), and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son (2nd-R), speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
SoftBank is in talks to make an up to $25 billion investment in OpenAI, CNBC confirmed Wednesday. The deal — which is not finalized, according to a person with knowledge of the matter — would make SoftBank the AI startup’s top backer. The talks also come a week after President Donald Trump unveiled a joint venture with the two companies and Oracle to invest billions of dollars in AI infrastructure in the U.S.
— CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han, Brian Evans, Sean Conlon, Leslie Josephs, Jeff Cox, Kevin Breuninger, Jordan Novet, Jonathan Vanian, Lora Kolodny and Hayden Field contributed to this report.
