Groundwork effectively laid over the past few weeks, the Fed made good on expectations to again raise short-term interest rates on Wednesday, boosting them by 75bps as part of the central bank’s ongoing efforts to cool inflation. The Federal Funds Target Rate now sits at 2.25% following a series of hikes in recent months, a mark not seen in the U.S. since 2019 - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch and Marketplace
The move and Chair Powell’s comments following the FOMC meeting helped juice stocks before the closing bell. (Though watch out for that whipsaw today) - WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
This morning’s GDP numbers may have a lot to do with which way those fickle markets ultimately go - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
Credit where it’s due to JetBlue on wrench-throwing: Spirit Airlines and Frontier have called off their proposed merger, “giving life to a rival bid for Spirit by JetBlue Airways.” Spirit announced the change-of-plans just before it was set to reveal the results of a shareholder vote on Frontier’s offer - NYTimes and Law360 and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
And so, table effectively cleared, enter JetBlue - NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch
The FTC moved this week via a lawsuit seeking an injunction to block Meta “from buying a virtual reality company called Within, potentially limiting the company’s push into the so-called metaverse and signaling a shift in how the agency is approaching tech deals.” The antitrust suit is the first under new FTC chair Lina Khan against a tech giant, and it comes as the company formerly known as Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg have “poured billions of dollars into building products for virtual and augmented reality” - NYTimes and Law360 and WSJ and Mashable and TechCrunch
Speaking of fun times with Zuck, Meta has posted its first ever quarterly revenue decline since the company went public 10 years ago. Q2 revenue was $28.82 billion, down from $29.07 billion a year ago (and missing analyst predictions by nearly $80M), and profits were off 36% from a year before - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch and TechCrunch
The Senate on Wednesday passed a bipartisan $280 billion measure “aimed at building up America’s manufacturing and technological edge to counter China” in what amounts to the “most significant government intervention in industrial policy in decades.” The bill earmarks $52 billion “in subsidies and additional tax credits to companies that manufacture [semiconductor] chips in the U.S.” and would “add $200 billion in scientific research” - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and TechCrunch
In welcome news for the U.S. auto industry (after a rough earnings report from GM earlier this week), Ford reported a Q2 profit of $667 million—a 20% increase from a year earlier—on the back of $40.2 billion in revenue “thanks to rising vehicle sales and higher prices” - NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch
Far less good for banking giant Credit Suisse, which on the heels of firing its CEO reported a $1.65 billion quarterly loss, “with results weighed down by its investment banking business” - NYTimes
Trident Mortgage Co., a Berkshire-Hathaway company, has reached a deal with the DOJ under which it will pay $24.4 million “to resolve allegations of lending discrimination against minority residents of neighborhoods in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.” The DOJ is calling it the “second-largest settlement related to ‘redlining’” in department history - WSJ and Bloomberg and Law360
On the increased weirdness in the way we’re talking about the natural world, and what it means for humanity “reconsider[ing] our relationship[] to nature” – TheAtlantic
We’re out on assignment tomorrow. In the meantime, stay safe, enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you back here next week,
MDR
The Robins Kaplan Financial Daily Dose features top stories and latest news headlines in financial markets, banking, securities and technology topics.
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