Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq mixed as Fed holds rates, Powell says ‘no decisions’ on September

Robinhood (HOOD) stock wavered after hours after the financial platform reported strong results. Market volatility and the return of meme stocks fueled investor activity on the platform.

Options contracts traded on Robinhood increased 32% year over year to a record 515 million, the company said. Robinhood also attributed strong results to new product launches, including tokenized stocks.

For the quarter, Robinhood’s net revenue was $989 million, versus the Street’s estimate of $921.5 million, per Bloomberg consensus data. Earnings per share came in at $0.42, higher than the $0.34 per share estimated.

Robinhood stock has been on a tear this year — up 185% year to date — largely driven by crypto and AI hype.

Read more: Live coverage of corporate earnings

Meta continued the string of earnings beats for Big Tech companies, with the AI and social media giant reporting earnings per share of $7.14 on revenue of $47.5 billion.

Analysts expected EPS to hit $5.89 on revenue of $44.3 billion.

Meta stock rose as much as 10% following the results.

The company also said it expects revenue in its third quarter will in between $47.5 billion-$50 billion; the Street was looking for $46.5 billion.

Meta also narrowed its spending forecast to a band of $114 billion-$118 billion, with capex expected to come in between $66 billion-$72 billion.

“While the infrastructure planning process remains highly dynamic, we currently expect another year of similarly significant capital expenditures dollar growth in 2026 as we continue aggressively pursuing opportunities to bring additional capacity online to meet the needs of our artificial intelligence efforts and business operations,” CFO Susan Li said in a statement.

Other notable metrics for Meta included average price per ad, which rose 9% over last year, and ad impressions, which rose 11%. Headcount rose 7% from the prior year in the second quarter.

Microsoft (MSFT) stock climbed 6% after hours after the tech giant posted strong earnings and cloud strength.

Here’s what Microsoft reported compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:

Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley reports that Intelligent Cloud segment revenue, which includes Microsoft’s Azure business, topped out at $29.8 billion. Analysts were looking for $29.09 billion.

Read more here.

US stocks ended the session mixed on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady. Investors awaited earnings from Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta (META) after the session closed.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell about 0.4%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) slipped 0.1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose almost 2%.

The Federal Reserve decided to keep rates steady at the end of its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday afternoon. Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated it was too early to determine the impacts of potential tariffs on the economy.

Investors await earnings from Microsoft and Meta after the close and commentary on the AI trade, which has sent the markets to all-time highs in recent weeks.

President Trump made an unusual visit to the Federal Reserve last week, donning a hard hat for a tour of its $2.5 billion renovation project led by Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The visit came amid growing criticism from the Trump administration over the project’s cost and timeline as the president continues to push for lower interest rates.

“It was an honor to host him,” Powell said on Wednesday. “It’s not something that happens very often. … But it was a good visit.”

The two briefly sparred over the project’s price tag after Trump claimed it had risen to $3.1 billion. Powell corrected him in real time, saying, “You just added in a third building. … It’s not new.”

As Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reported, Trump aides have accused the Fed of underplaying the full cost, insisting all three buildings should count. Deputy chief of staff James Blair later accused Powell of “splitting hairs.”

Ultimately, Powell said he was “quite pleased” to hear the president repeatedly emphasize that his priority was seeing the construction completed as soon as possible.

“That is our focus, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Powell said.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged that trade negotiations have gained some clarity with the effective US tariff rate now estimated to settle around 15%, according to Wall Street economists.

However, he warned there’s still considerable uncertainty over when and how these tariffs will ultimately affect the economy.

“It’s been a very dynamic time for these trade negotiations and lots and lots of events in the intervening period,” Powell said in his post-decision press conference. “But we’re still a ways away from seeing where things settle down.”

Powell added that while the Fed is continuing to learn more, “many uncertainties” remain, and it “doesn’t feel like we’re very close to the end of that process.”

Markets are pricing in a 63% chance the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates at its next meeting in September. President Trump insinuated a similar expectation earlier this afternoon, saying that the Fed “probably won’t” cut rates until September.

But when asked directly about cutting rates then, Powell didn’t guarantee anything.

“We have made no decisions about September,” Powell said. “We don’t we don’t do that in advance.”

Powell noted that there will be two rounds of inflation and labor market reports ahead of the next meeting that will help guide that decision.

The Fed held interest rates steady on Wednesday but the decision wasn’t unanimous.

Fed Govenors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman dissented. In a speech on July 17 titled the “case for cutting now,” Waller pointed out that the tariff inflation boost will be “temporary.”

“Standard central banking practice is to ‘look through’ such price-level effects as long as inflation expectations are anchored, which they are.”

Goldman Sachs Chief US economist David Mericle provided a chart in the Yahoo Finance Chartbook that visualizes this point. Mericle and the team at Goldman Sachs expect core PCE inflation to peak at 3.3% around June 2026 before collapsing to 2.7% by the end of the year and continuing its path lower.

To Mericle, whose team holds a call for the Fed to cut rates by a quarter percentage point at its final three meetings of the year, the key part of this chart is that inflation eventually returns to its trend downward once the tariff pass through is finished.

“We agree with Governor Waller that tariffs will have only a one-time effect on the price level and are unlikely to dislodge inflation expectations and ignite a prolonged period of high inflation,” Mericle wrote in a research note on July 27.

But, Mericle added, the one-time tariff boost sending inflation back above 3% “could leave some Fed officials hesitant to cut.”

In a widely anticipated move, the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady in a range of 4.25% to 4.5%.

The decision was not unanimous, with Fed Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman voting against the decision. Those officials preferred the Fed to lower the federal funds rate by a quarter of a percentage point.

Stocks are modestly higher on Wednesday as investors await the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision and a subsequent press conference from Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) nudged up 0.1%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) ticked up 0.5%.

Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield was up about 3 basis points to hover near 4.36%.

US economic growth rebounded in the second quarter after contracting for the first time in three years to start 2025.

The headline number, a 3% annualized pace of growth, was well above the 2.6% increase economists had expected, a sharp mover higher from the 0.5% contraction seen in the first quarter.

But the BEA noted that the second quarter bounce-back reflected a decrease in imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP.

EY chief economist Gregory Daco noted that the quarterly swings in imports created an “economic mirage” that masked some underlying cooling in the economy.

Daco argues that when “stripping out the noise” and looking at a metric like growth in sales to private domestic purchasers, the data points to a slowing in economic activity. Sales to private domestic purchasers rose 1.2% in the second quarter, lower than the 1.9% growth seen in the first quarter and the slowest pace of growth since 2022.

“Policy uncertainty, resurgent inflation pressures stemming from tariffs, and tighter immigration constraints are beginning to weigh more visibly on activity,” Daco said.

Read more here.

Reddit (RDDT) stock rose more than 2% Wednesday as Wall Street analysts largely maintained their bullish takes on shares ahead of the company’s second quarter earnings.

Analysts at Needham, Deutsche Bank, Jefferies, and Raymond James reiterated their Buy ratings on the stock in notes to clients heading into the social media platform’s quarterly results Thursday after the bell.

“The bear case (that Google Search will no longer send traffic to RDDT) is not playing out,” wrote Needham analyst Laura Martin. Concerns over the impact of changes to Google Search’s algorithm on Reddit’s daily active users drove the stock down in the aftermath of its past two quarterly reports.

Jefferies analyst John Colantuoni said web traffic data showed daily active user growth stabilizing in the past three months after decelerating throughout the first quarter.

Needham’s Martin added: “AI-driven ad tools, such as Reddit Insights & Conversation Summaries, suggest RDDT is already monetizing GenAI.”

Home contract signings slumped more than expected in June, the latest sign that the housing market is still essentially frozen, Yahoo Finance’s Claire Boston reports.

Boston writes:

Read the full story here.

Hershey (HSY) shares rose Wednesday morning after the candy and snack maker reported second quarter earnings and revenue ahead of Wall Street’s expectations.

Its earnings per share of $1.21 were above the $1.01 projected, while revenue of $2.6 billion was above the $2.5 billion estimate, according to Bloomberg consensus data. Revenue was boosted by a later Easter in 2025.

The stock’s climb comes despite the company revising its full-year outlook. It now sees earnings per share falling 50% in 2025 versus the prior 40% decline expected.

That drop comes as Hershey faces record-high cocoa prices (CC=F) due to a global shortage and anticipates as much as a $180 million hit during the fiscal year from tariffs.

The company recently raised candy prices due to elevated cocoa costs.

President Trump used a return to GDP growth ahead of a widely expected Federal Reserve decision to keep monetary policy unchanged to say that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell must “now” lower rates, Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reports.

Werschkul writes:

Read the full story here.

Marvell Technology (MRVL) shares spiked Wednesday after Morgan Stanley (MS) analyst Joseph Moore lifted his price target on the stock to $80 from $73. In a note to clients on Tuesday, Moore cited the chipmaker’s opportunity in the AI networking space.

Networking products such as data center switches, ethernet controllers, and digital signal processors are required in data centers to receive and send data between AI chips and servers. Marvell makes both networking products and custom AI chips (also known as processors) called ASIC accelerators.

“For both Broadcom (AVGO) and Marvell (MRVL), we expect AI upside this year to come from the networking side rather than processors [custom AI chips],” Moore wrote.

Moore said Marvell “should be a direct beneficiary of NVIDIA’s upcoming product cycle.” That’s because networking technology is needed to support upcoming purchases of Nvidia’s latest Blackwell chips and servers.

“Marvell is firmly in the AI winners camp,” wrote Moore.

Nvidia (NVDA) shares moved up 1% early on Wednesday, leading the group of “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks ahead of earnings reports from Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta (META) after the bell.

Amazon (AMZN), Tesla (TSLA), and Microsoft stock prices wavered around the flat line, while Meta and Google (GOOG) shares rose less than 1%. Apple (AAPL) slipped around 0.1% in lackluster trade for US stocks more broadly.

Nvidia is up roughly 4% over the past five trading sessions, compared with the tech heavy Nasdaq Composite’s (^IXIC) 0.6% gain over the same period.

US stocks held steady at the start of Wednesday’s trading session ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision and earnings from Big Tech names Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta (META).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) wavered along the flat line, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) nudged nearly 0.1% higher. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) ticked up roughly 0.2%.

The indices had fallen on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 ending its six-day record streak.

Data from ADP on private payroll growth and the first look at second quarter GDP growth out Wednesday morning both topped forecasts, a sign of continued resilience in the US economy.

Private payroll growth in July tallied 104,000 according to the latest data from ADP, more than the 77,000 jobs that private employers were expected to add and a rebound from the 23,000 jobs that were cut in the sector last month.

“Our hiring and pay data are broadly indicative of a healthy economy,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. “Employers have grown more optimistic that consumers, the backbone of the economy, will remain resilient.”

Fifteen minutes after ADP’s data was released, the BEA put out its first look at GDP growth in the second quarter, which showed the US economy grew at an annualized rate of 3% in the second quarter, faster than the 2.6% that had been expected by economists.

In the first three months of the year, the US economy contracted at a rate of 0.5%.

The BEA noted in its release the rebound in the second quarter was largely a result of decreased imports, which had weighed on growth in the first quarter as businesses increased orders ahead of expected tariffs.

In response to the data, longer-term Treasury yields ticked slightly higher while futures remained little-changed ahead of the Federal Reserve’s policy announcement set for 2:00 p.m. ET.

In a post on Truth Social following the GDP data, President Trump again called on the Fed to cut rates. The central bank is widely expected to make no change to its interest rate policy later today.

Here’s a look at some of the top stocks trending in premarket trading:

Novo Nordisk (NVO): The stock continued to sink on Wednesday, falling 4% premarket after a 21% wipeout on Tuesday. The drugmaker cut its full-year sales and operating profit guidance again, related to lower growth expectations for its diabetes and weight-loss drugs, Wegovy and Ozempic. Eli Lilly stock also fell Tuesday but was up 1% Wednesday morning.

Starbucks (SBUX): Shares of the coffee giant popped 5% premarket after the company reported its sixth straight quarterly sales decline. But things weren’t as bad as investors feared, and CEO Brian Niccol assured Wall Street that the company was “ahead of schedule” in its turnaround plan.

V.F. Corp (VFC): The Vans parent’s stock soared nearly 20% after the company beat first quarter revenue estimates on Wednesday, aided by an uptick in demand for its apparel and footwear products.

Palo Alto Networks (PANW): The software company is in final talks to acquire Israeli cybersecurity provider CyberArk, the Wall Street Journal reported, and the deal could be finalized as early as this week. The deal could place a value north of $20 billion on CyberArk, potentially making it one of the largest tech takeovers this year. Shares of Palo Alto Networks rose 0.4% in premarket trading.

Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) stocks rose modestly ahead of their quarterly results, which are set to be released after the closing bell on Wednesday. Investors will be looking to the two Big Tech companies for signs of AI sales growth and monetization.

Read live coverage of corporate earnings here.