Stocks closed on Friday near record highs, with the S&P 500 sitting just below the 6,900 mark as a twitchy bond market looks ahead.
A busy calendar will greet investors this week, with the last Fed meeting — and press conference from Chair Jerome Powell — of 2025 highlighting the action.
On the corporate side, we have Wednesday circled, with Oracle (ORCL) and Adobe’s (ADBE) quarterly results and Broadcom (AVGO) and Costco (COST) headlining the proceedings on Thursday.
The economic calendar will continue last week’s labor market theme, with delayed JOLTS data from October coming out on Tuesday to elucidate hirings, firings, and quits.
The Federal Reserve rate-setters are back in the conference room on Tuesday, and the public eagerly awaits Wednesday’s announcement and press conference from Powell, which will be scrutinized for any clues on the central bank’s path ahead.
Last week’s economic data showed cracks in the labor market, with data from ADP and the firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showing unexpected job losses and elevated layoffs. Thanks largely to that weakness, investors have grown near certain that a 25 basis point rate cut is coming, from 3.75% to 4.00% to a new target of 3.50% to 3.75%.
Read more: How jobs, inflation, and the Fed are all related
Friday’s Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) reading, which showed inflation moderating in September, has only further solidified the market’s expectation.
But like a good movie, there’s always something to chew on, even if we have the ending all but spoiled.
First and foremost will be Powell’s comments and Q&A session in the press conference at 2:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday. Though the 2 p.m. decision may not move markets if the commentary is tight in the press release, the more freewheeling format is still blue-chip appointment viewing.
The market will also receive the year’s final Summary of Economic Projections, more commonly known as the “dot plot,” which will outline how the rate-setters envision the coming year (and beyond) unfolding in the US economy.
Other points of intrigue line this meeting: For one, it will be the last with the current makeup of voting members setting rates. The presidents of the Cleveland, Minneapolis, Dallas, and Philadelphia Feds will all rotate in, tagging out their counterparts from Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City.
Also, speculation over Powell’s replacement has reached a fever pitch in recent days, with President Trump promising a nominee by early next year. Trump’s top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, is largely seen as the favorite, even as bond investors have grown jittery over his potential appointment.
