🧠 The Fed continues to holds rates, as retail investors continue rush in to the market

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🏛️ Financial News

• US Central Bank 🏛️ Fed holds interest rates steady between 4.25-4.5%, still sees two cuts coming this year – CNBC: The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee downgraded its collective outlook for economic growth and gave a bump higher to its inflation projection. Officials now see the US economy accelerating at just a 1.7% pace this year, down 0.4 percentage point from the last projection in December.

• US Job Market 💼 US labor market holding steady, but job opportunities dwindling – Rueters: The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits increased slightly last week, suggesting the labor market remained stable in March, though the outlook is darkening amid rising trade tensions and deep cuts in government spending.

• US Housing Markets 🏡 US existing home sales unexpectedly rise in February – Reuters: The National Association of Realtors said existing home sales rose 4.2% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.26M units, an unexpected increased as rising supply pulled buyers back into the market, but rising economic uncertainty could limit further gains. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast home resales would drop to a rate of 3.95M units.

• US Homebuilders 👷🏻 Tariff fears are raising construction costs by up to 20%, says Related Group CEO – CNBC: President Donald Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on certain goods from Canada and Mexico and is expected to follow through on broader tariffs starting on April 2. Related Group CEO Jon Paul Pérez said contractors are raising prices in anticipation.

• Retail Investors 🙃 Money-losing retail crowd keeps buying stocks as market teeters – Bloomberg via Yahoo! Finance: In a stock market battered by trade turmoil and growing fears of an economic slowdown, retail investors are doubling down, undeterred as their losses mount.

🌎 Global Markets

• European Sentiment 😊 ‘Buy European’: Airbus, Dassault Systemes and others call for sovereign fund and higher Europe tech autonomy – CNBC: Signatories from over 90 European firms and lobby groups sent a letter to the European Commission that said “building strategic autonomy in key sectors is now a recognized urgent imperative across Europe”. The letter added: Europe needs to recover the initiative, and become more technologically independent across all layers of its critical digital infrastructure.

• European Markets 🏰 Europe’s markets lose steam amid EU deadlock on Ukraine, trade tension – Euronews: 2025’s European stock market rally took a breather as EU leaders struggled to secure a €5B funding package for Ukraine. Investor sentiment was further dampened by the ECB’s cautious outlook on the economy and inflation, triggering selloffs, particularly in the defense and automotive sectors.

• Global Debt 💳 Global debt exceeds $100T as interest costs surge, OECD says – Rueters: Outstanding government and corporate bonds globally exceeded $100 trillion last year, the OECD said on Thursday, with rising interest costs leaving borrowers facing tough choices and needing to prioritize productive investments.

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🌎 Stock Market

• $ACN 💼 Accenture is DOGE’s first corporate casualty as shares dive on warning contracts will be cut – CNBC: Shares of Accenture tumbled after the consulting firm said that tighter federal spending efforts are starting weigh on its revenues. Accenture is among the first of U.S. corporate giants to get hit by the Trump administration’s DOGE.

• $FDX 🚚 FedEx cuts full-year results forecast on 'uncertainty' in economy, bad weather – Transport Topics: The global parcel delivery firm lowered its full-year profit and revenue forecasts after reporting earnings, as stubbornly soft demand and uncertainty in the US industrial economy as President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on trading partners.

• $NKE 🎽 Nike expects sales will plunge in current quarter as it faces tariffs, sliding consumer confidence – MarketWatch: The sneaker giant expects its sales decline in the fiscal Q4, which is set to end in May, to be at the “low end” of the “mid-teens range,” far worse than analysts expected. During the key holiday quarter, sales declined 9%, driven by weakness in China. The company said its guidance is based on its on-going restructuring efforts, plus tariffs and sliding consumer confidence.

• $BYDD 🔌 Chinese EV maker BYD’s shares surge on unveiling of ‘fast as pumping gas’ charging tech – South China Morning Post: The new battery and charger platform from the world’s biggest EV maker operates at 1 megawatt, twice the power of Tesla’s fastest offering.

• $JNJ 💊 J&J boosts investments in U.S. to more than $55 billion amid looming tariff threats – CNBC: Johnson & Johnson plans to spend over $55B to build four plants in the US, as a threat of drug import duties from the Trump administration forces companies to expand their manufacturing operations domestically.

• $PEP 🥤 PepsiCo buys prebiotic soda brand Poppi for nearly $2B – CNBC: PepsiCo is buying Poppi for $1.95B from founders Allison and Stephen Ellsworth that launched the prebiotic soda brand back in 2018, the same year that rival Olipop was founded. Pepsi’s rival Coca-Cola recently launched Simply Pop, it’s own prebiotic soda brand. 

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🚀 Magnificent 7

• $NVDA 🧇 Nvidia’s ceo says faster chips are the best way to reduce AI costs – CNBC: Speaking at Nvidia’s GTC conference, Huang said questions clients have about the cost and return on investment of the company’s graphics processors, or GPUs, will go away with its Blackwell Ultra systems, coming out this year, which could provide data centers 50x more revenue than its Hopper systems because it is so much faster at serving AI to multiple users.

• $GOOG 🔍 Google's $32B deal for Wiz accelerated under Trump – Reuters: Less than a year after Google's plans to acquire Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz fell apart, executives were able to ink a deal in a flurry of negotiations after President Donald Trump was sworn into office just eight weeks ago.

• $GOOG 🔍 Google, Apple hit with European Commission antitrust actions under cloud of Trump tariff threats – Rueters: The EU announced antitrust charges on Google and ordered Apple to take steps to comply with the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, a landmark law that aims to bring down barriers to competition in the EU technology sector.

• $AAPL 🍎 Apple reportedly planning executive shake-up to address Siri delays – CNBC: Apple was slower than most Big Tech firms to jump on the generative AI hype train, but it finally got there with the release of Apple Intelligence. The first components of Apple's AI rolled out last year, but it's going to take a bit longer for one of the most hotly anticipated features. After announcing that the improved Siri was delayed until 2026, Apple has reportedly begun an uncharacteristic reorganization of its executive ranks.

• $TSLA 🔌 Early March Tesla trade-in data on pace for record high amid Musk backlash – Reuters: Amid protests against CEO Elon Musk's work as an adviser to Donald Trump, motorists have traded in a record number of Tesla vehicles. Edmunds data showed Tesla model years 2017 (or newer accounted) for 1.4% of all vehicle traded-ins thru March 15 – up from 0.4% in March 2024 – a share that could grow through the second half of March.

  o Rueters: Tesla recalls most Cybertrucks due to trim detaching from vehicle

🚀 Artificial Intelligence

• $MU 🐘 Micron shares jump on earnings beat, rosy guidance as data center revenue triples – CNBC: Micron reported fiscal second-quarter results that beat analysts’ estimates and offered better-than-expected guidance. Revenue increased 38% from a year earlier to $8.05B, as data center revenue tripled from a year ago.

• IPO 🔔 What is CoreWeave, the cloud-services provider expected to go public next week?  – MarketWatch: CoreWeave was founded as a crypto-mining company but pivoted into AI cloud services.

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💱 Crypto Currencies

• Administration 🏛️ Trump addresses Digital Asset Summit, urges Congress to pass stablecoin bill: CNBC Crypto World – CNBC: Texas' bitcoin strategic reserve bill clears its senate, while New Hampshire marks a committee win and Utah teeters on a deadline this week.

• $XRP ߷ XRP surges after Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says SEC is dropping its lawsuit against the company – CNBC: XRP surged after Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the Securities and Exchange Commission is no longer pursuing its appeal in the case against the payments company.

🏖️ Retirement

• Social Security 🏛️ Social Security Administration to emphasize in-person office visits to curb identity fraud – CNBC: As the SSA seeks to curb identity fraud, the agency will transition to stronger identity proofing procedures, including requiring a visit an office to claim benefits, or change their direct deposit information.

• Tax Deductions 💰 Americans get a bigger tax break for buying an EV than for raising children – MarketWatch: A new survey found that the majority of active traders are bullish, despite some thinking the market is in a bubble.

• Student Loans 🏫 How to manage student loan payments after a layoff – CNBC: With job cuts are on the rise, fueled in part by terminations of federal workers, more people figuring out how to keep up with monthly student loan payments.

• Millennials 🥑 How Millennials should handle the $124T wealth transfer – Yahoo! Finance: A recent study released by Fidelity revealed that 56% of parents hadn’t had the difficult money conversation with their children, but 81% said they would have benefited from having a discussion.

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We’ll be back next Saturday morning to recap the week’s financial news.

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✨ Happy Unprompting,

Rawee
[email protected]

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