Wall Street Drifts Ahead of Rate Decision

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are drifting on Wednesday, ahead of the Federal Reserve’s upcoming decisionon interest rates and after two days of disruption driven by doubts about the artificial-intelligence boom.

The S&P 500 was down 0.2% in morning trading on a packed day, which will also include earnings reports from influential companies like Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Tesla after trading closes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 79 points, or 0.2%, as of 10:25 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% lower.

Nvidia has been at the center of Wall Street’s action this week after a Chinese upstart, DeepSeek, said it developed a large-language model that can compete with the world’s best without having to use Nvidia’s top chips. That cast doubt about whether AI development will require as much spending on chips, vast data centers and electricity as earlier thought, which caused huge swings for stocks across the industry.

Nvidia fell 3.7% Wednesday after plunging nearly 17% Monday and then jumping nearly 9% Tuesday. It was the heaviest weight dragging the S&P 500 lower, even as the majority of stocks within the index rose.

The Big Tech companies reporting their latest results after trading ends will likely get questions from analysts about whether DeepSeek’s discovery will mean lower investment from them in building out AI. Such answers could help guide the next jagged move for the industry, which was instrumental in the S&P 500’s rallying to back-to-back yearly gains of more than 20% for the first time since before the millennium.

Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Tesla all fell ahead of their reports, weighing on the market.

But before hearing from them, Wall Street needs to get past another potential market mover. The Federal Reserve will announce in the afternoon what it will do with the federal funds rate, which controls how much banks charge for overnight loans.

Such moves filter through the economy to all kinds of other loans, and traders widely expect the Fed to hold the federal funds rate steady. If they’re correct, it would be the first time the Fed has done so since it began lowering rates in September to give the economy a boost.

After the Fed announces its decision, Chair Jerome Powell will also speak with reporters, where he could give hints about whether the central bank is envisioning more cuts to rates this year. In December, the Fed helped send U.S. stocks to one of their worst days of 2024 after indicating it envisions cutting the fed funds rate just twice in 2025, down from an earlier projection of four times.

Lower rates can goose the economy by making borrowing cheaper, which would raise corporate profits. They can also boost prices for investments, but the downside is they could provide more fuel for inflation. And worries have been climbing that inflation may be difficult to fully subdue to the Fed’s 2% target, particularly with uncertainty about tariffs and other policies potentially coming from President Donald Trump.

Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market ahead of the Fed’s decision. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.52% from 4.53% late Tuesday.

On Wall Street, Starbucks rose 5.5% after delivering a better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Brian Niccol said the chain is planning to cut its food and beverage offerings by 30% over the course of this year to simplify operations and speed service, part of its efforts to turn the company around.

T-Mobile US rallied 8.4% after topping Wall Street’s expectations for both profit and revenue in the last three months of 2024. It also said it expects to add between a net 5.5 million and 6 million in postpaid customers this year.

Brinker International jumped 14.5% after the company behind Chili’s restaurants delivered better results than expected. CEO Kevin Hochman said Chili’s attracted new customers and that its return customers were coming more frequently.

Railroad operator Norfolk Southern rose 4.1% after it beat Wall Street’s profit forecasts. There is also growing optimism that a Republican-controlled Congress could ease restrictions on the industry.

Frontier Group Holdings climbed 3.6% after announcing it would try for a second time to merge with Spirit Airlines, which sought bankruptcy protection late last year. Frontier said the proposed deal would include newly issued Frontier debt and common stock.

On the losing end of Wall Street was Danaher, which fell 7.7% after the life sciences, biotechnology and diagnostics company reported results for the latest quarter that just missed analysts’ expectations.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe. ASML’s stock jumped 7.4% in Amsterdam after announcing strong revenue on demand for its advanced chipmaking tools.

In Asia, where many markets were closed for holidays, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1%.

___

AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.