Stock Market Today: Dow Hits Record High Ahead of Fed Meeting

Stock markets struggled to recover on Monday amid uncertainty about the scale of the Federal Reserve’s upcoming interest rate cut, as well as the central bank’s outlook for interest rates and the economy.

It is almost certain that the Federal Reserve will cut federal funds rate when he ends his policy meeting on Wednesday afternoon. The question now is how big that cut will be.

According to CME Group FedWatch ToolFutures traders are pricing in a 63% chance of a wider 50 basis point cut (0.50%), down from 30% a week ago. The odds of a quarter-point rate cut (0.25%) have fallen to 37% from 70%.

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Investors are also looking for the Federal Reserve’s summary of economic projections, a dot-comb chart that shows central bankers’ expectations for interest rates over the next few years.

In March, the Fed forecast interest rate cuts of three-quarters of a percentage point by the end of the yearalthough it was lowered in June to reflect expectations of a cut in interest rates by one quarter of a percentage point this year. But that data is now “very out of date,” says Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica.

Oracle could gain another 25%, analyst says

In news about individual stocks, Oracle (ORCL) rose 5.1% after analyst Melius Research Ben Reitzes changed its rating on the cloud software provider from “Hold” to “Buy” and raised its price target from $155 to $210, implying an implied upside of almost 25% from today’s close.

“Given the larger backlog, prospects for continued AI success, and acceleration in cloud revenue, we are raising estimates,” the analyst wrote in a note, adding that the company’s “multi-cloud deals” with partners such as Amazon.com (AMZN, -0.9%) have higher margins than the Oracle Cloud (OCI) average.

Today’s price increase is just more of the same technology stockswhich is up 61% year to date. The stock is up almost 22% since last Monday’s close, thanks to Oracle’s impressive earnings report.

What’s more, this incredible run made Larry Ellison, co-founder and CTO of Oracle, the secondthe richest person in the worldsailing alongside Amazon founder Jeff Bezos but lagging behind Tesla (TSLA, -1.5%) CEO Elon Musk.

Intel is growing, Apple is sinking

Intel (INTC) posted another significant gain on Monday, rising 6.4% after Bloomberg report said the chipmaker is eligible for up to $3.5 billion in federal grants. The funding will help the company’s domestic factories produce advanced chips for the Pentagon.

This made Intel the best Dow Jones stocks Monday, as the large-cap tech giant Apple (AAPL, -2.8%) was the worst. AAPL was weighed down by news of disappointing iPhone 16 pre-orders.

According to an analyst’s post on MediumApple has sold 37 million units of its new iPhone 16 in its first weekend, down about 13% compared to iPhone 15 sales in its first weekend last year. Demand for the latest Pro series saw the biggest year-over-year drop (-27%), while pre-orders for the Plus version rose 48%.

As for the main indices, those based on technology Nasdaq Composite fell 0.5% to 17,592, while the broader S&P500 ended up 0.1% to 5,633, a blue-chip result Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6% to 41,622, a new closing record.