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Markets Mixed Ahead of Latest Fed Meeting

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Monday, September 16th, 2024

Markets performed by the end of today’s regular trading session in-line with how they began the trading week this morning: mixed. Only the Nasdaq spent the entire day in the red. The Dow gained +228 points, +0.55%, to 41,622 — a fresh record high. The Nasdaq dropped -91 points today, -0.52%. The S&P 500 and small-cap Russell 2000 wound up +0.13% and +0.38%, respectively.

Intel Stock Sees Chips Act Windfall, Joins with AWS


A co-investment between microchip giant Intel (INTC - Free Report) and cloud services giant AWS (AMZN - Free Report) was announced this afternoon, pushing INTC shares up +8% in today’s after-market. The companies are expanding their long-term strategic collaboration, with some assistance from an additional $3 billion in funding from the Chips Act from the U.S. government.

This is a big shot in the arm for Intel, which has shed thousands of jobs so far this year, and had been trading down -56% year to date. This collaboration with AWS — supplying AI fabric chips and Xeon 6 chips for mobile device security, among other things — has reversed the downturn Intel suffered after its most recent earnings report. AWS parent Amazon shares are flat on this news.

Oracle Stock at All-Time Highs on Larry Ellison Comments


Oracle (ORCL - Free Report) co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison yesterday has led to investor interest in his stock today. In public comments he made Sunday, Ellison spoke about going to dinner with Tesla’s (TSLA - Free Report) Elon Musk and NVIDIA’s (NVDA - Free Report) Jensen Huang, whereby he imparted that he and Musk were “begging” the NVIDIA founder for AI chips: “Please take our money,” Ellison said.

The effect has reminded market participants that Larry Ellison is a major player in the AI race, on par with the Tesla/SpaceX/X (formerly Twitter) boss. Shares are now at all-time highs for the company, following its double-digit gains following fiscal Q1 earnings reported last week.

A Busy Tuesday for Stock Investors


The final major economic reports before the next Fed announcement on interest rate policy come out Tuesday morning: Retail Sales, Industrial Production/Capacity Utilization, Business Inventories and the latest Homebuilder Confidence survey will all have been released prior to the end of the first day of the Fed meeting. 

Retail Sales are expected to pull back from July’s 12-month high +1.0% to -0.2% for August. In fact, July was the highest level of Retail Sales since January 2023, led by autos and auto parts sales. Minus autos, food services, building materials and gasoline, last month’s headline melted down to +0.3% — still a healthy economic print.

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