👌🏽 Does The Fed Have Things Under Control?

Good morning. US stock futures moved higher in Thursday morning trading as the Federal Reserve reiterated expectations for three cuts to interest rates this year.

📉 Fed tows line on interest rates 

📝 Our report: Looks like the Federal Reserve is keeping its cool by holding interest rates steady and sticking to its forecast of needing to slice rates three times in 2024. The central bank's benchmark interest rate remained in a range of 5.25%-5.50% at the conclusion of its latest policy meeting, the highest since 2001.  

 🔑 Key points:

• While maintaining forecasts the Fed would need to lower rates by 0.75% by the end of this year, the Fed's policy announcement said the central bank does "not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%."

• The decision to stay the course for three rate cuts this year — the same number of cuts forecast in December — comes after sticky inflation data was thought to push officials to scale back the number of cuts for 2024.

• The Fed forecasts for 2025 interest rate cuts, however, were tempered slightly in its updated projections, with officials now expecting that three additional rate cuts will be needed next year, down from the four expected in December.

💡 So what: The Federal Reserve's decision to hold interest rates steady suggests that the Fed believes the economy is stable enough to support existing interest rates without the need for adjustments. It also indicates that they may be monitoring economic indicators closely and waiting for further developments before making any changes to monetary policy.

Thursday - US Leading Economic Indicators

Friday - Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic Speaks

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🤖 Intel receives big bucks for chip plants

WHAT: The US is doling out a whopping $8.5 billion in grants and up to $11 billion in loans to Intel to support the chip giant's grand plans of expanding its semiconductor factories. The package will support more than $100 billion in US investments from Intel, including efforts to produce cutting-edge semiconductors at large-scale plants in Arizona and Ohio, the Commerce Department announced.

WHY: The Chips Act set aside $39 billion in grants — plus loans and guarantees worth $75 billion — to persuade chip companies to build factories on American soil. The goal is to reverse a decades-long shift of semiconductor production to Asia.

🎦 Movie studio receives massive buyout offer

WHAT: Apollo Global Management Inc. has tossed an $11 billion proposal into the ring, aiming to scoop up Paramount Global's glitzy Hollywood studio according to reports from the Wall Street Journal citing people familiar with the matter. The $11 billion price exceeds the current stock market value of Paramount Global, which has two classes of shares collectively valued at more than $8 billion.

WHY: Apollo, a private equity firm, is one of several potential suitors circling Paramount Global as its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, weighs a possible sale of the company. Redstone’s family company, National Amusements Inc., holds a near 80% voting stake in Paramount.

📱 Another day, another Google fine…

WHAT: France's competition watchdog has slapped Alphabet's Google with a hefty fine of 250 million euros for not playing by the EU's intellectual property rules in its dealings with media publishers. The watchdog said Google's AI-powered chatbot Bard - since rebranded under the name Gemini - was trained on content from publishers and news agencies, without notifying them.

WHY: The fine comes as many publishers, writers and newsrooms seek to limit the scraping - or automatic collection of data - by AI services of their online content without their consent of fair compensation..

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