The Dow Jones now is flat approaching the Federal Reserve's latest meeting on interest rates. The central bank is not expected to lower rates.
Investors are also paying close attention to a busy day of earnings reports. More on everything moving the Dow today, below.
Before we get into this story and more, here are the numbers from Tuesday for the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq:
Index
Previous Close
Point Change
Percentage Change
Dow Jones
26,379.28
-205.49
-0.77
S&P 500
3,218.44
-20.97
-0.65
Nasdaq
10,402.09
-134.18
-1.27
Now here's a closer look at today's most important market events and stocks. We'll also discuss the stories that slipped under the radar of the mainstream financial press on Wednesday.
The Top Stock Market Stories for Wednesday
Investors will gather around their televisions this afternoon to hear the Federal Reserve's latest decision on monetary policy. The central bank will offer an update on the state of the American economy during the COVID-19 outbreak. Investors do not expect that the Fed will alter its benchmark rate between the range of 0% and 0.25%. In fact, according to FedWatch at CME Group, the odds of a rate hike sit at 0%.
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Johns Hopkins University reported that states like California, Florida and Texas are experiencing record-high average death rates. The surge in deaths raises concerns about the ability to keep the virus under control. Across the U.S., there have been 4.3 million official cases, with total deaths on the verge of surpassing 149,200. The United States isn't the only country experiencing new challenges. According to reports, France is now trying to avoid a second lockdown as the epidemic continues to swell across the nation.
Meanwhile, prepare for a very critical day on Capitol Hill. Today, the CEOs of Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), and Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google will appear before the House Antitrust Subcommittee. Congress has conducted an investigation into antitrust matters for more than a year on these firms. Investors will be looking for clues into the possibility of greater regulation on these firms. These tech stocks have surged since the beginning of the year. AMZN alone is up more than 62% since January 1.
Stocks to Watch Today: SHOP, KODK, BA
Shares of Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP) jumped more than 7% this morning after the company announced that second-quarter revenue surged by 97%. The Canadian e-commerce giant topped Wall Street estimates thanks to the big shift among brick-and-mortar retailers shifted to its digital platform. Shares are now up more than 100% over the last six months thanks to the increasing shift toward digital shopping. Shopify is now Canada's largest company by market capitalization after the earnings report.
Shares of Eastman Kodak (NASDAQ: KODK) surged more than 73% on Wednesday morning. The rally comes a day after the stock jumped more than 200% in a day after the U.S. government announced it was providing the company with a $765 million government loan to produce inputs for a variety of generic drugs. I'm not sure what this has to do with photography, but Robinhood investors have been piling into it.
In earning news, shares of Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) added 1% after the jet maker reported a quarterly EPS loss of -$4.79. That figure was much larger than the loss of -$2.54 expected by Wall Street analysts. The company also reported a sharper than expected drop in revenue due to the ongoing decline in airline travel and a slump in orders and production for its 737 Max, 777X and 787 aircraft.
Look for additional earnings reports from PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL), General Electric (NYSE: GE), General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), General Motors (NYSE: GM), and Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN).
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Garrett Baldwin is a globally recognized research economist, financial writer, consultant, and political risk analyst with decades of trading experience and degrees in economics, cybersecurity, and business from Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Indiana University, and Northwestern.