FOMC Holds, Market Folds, Q2 Earnings Mostly Bold

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A very eventful Hump Day has transpired in today’s trading session, particularly upon the press conference following the Fed monetary policy decision today, which kept interest rates steady once again. Earnings reports for the Mag 7 and more followed the closing bell, with drastically mixed results.

FOMC Decides to Hold Rates at +3.50-3.75%

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has once again voted to keep the ongoing +3.50-3.75% Fed funds rate in place, for now the fifth-straight meeting. The statement issued by the Fed was once again short on words and devoid of guidance, although it did include three dissents — Cleveland’s Beth Hammack, Minneapolis’ Neel Kashkari and Dallas’ Lorie Logan all voted for a 25 basis-point (bps) hike. These are the same Fed members who voted to remove the “downward bias” language from the final FOMC statement under ex-Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s tenure.

That said, there were some real keys to what the Fed considers important: its “2 percent goal” (notice no decimal placement) was cited directly. “There is no soft inflation target… (nor) a soft implicit target,” is how the Fed Chair characterized this in his presser, which gives credence to the idea that the +2.0% interest rate target under Powell remains intact. The culprit, then, for this higher-than-optimal inflation came from “supply shocks that have driven price increases” — meaning, perhaps especially, oil price increases based on the war in Iran, which is as close as the Fed came to saying that present inflation is “transitory.”

Warsh was not big on giving keen insights into the decisions on the Fed’s current monetary policy as he speaks to the Wall Street press pool. In fact, he proved quite adept and speaking at length without betraying any new information not seen in the brief statement. Bond markets were not pleased with his performance, however: the 10-year yield ramped up from +4.63% earlier in the day to +4.69% as of the end of trading. The 2-year slid a tad to +4.26%, marking the first time in several session the yield curve has been more than 40 bps.

Likely, Warsh’s majority decision demonstrates a hopefulness about a timely end to the aggressions in and around Iran, which affect oil prices every time the Strait of Hormuz chokes off its normal traffic levels. (It would have been nice to get some confirmation on this from Warsh himself.) There seems to be little appetite for dampening economic output while the events in Iran remain up in the air.

Earnings Reports After the Bell: META, MSFT, QCOM & More

Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) shares are down another -7% in the after-market today, following mixed fiscal Q2 results. Earnings took a couple big one-time hits and came in nearly a buck light of the Zacks consensus to $6.18 per share, missing on the bottom line for the first time since 2022. Revenues of $60.80 billion surpassed the $6.21 billion — well above the $47.52 billion brought in a year ago.

CapEx remained high but didn’t get revised upward on the top end (it did raise on the bottom end): $130-145 billion for the current fiscal year, with free cash flow remaining positive at $784 million. Daily Active People bounced back from its first-ever drop a quarter ago to 3.6 billion. Revenue guidance was lackluster, so the shares are digging the hole deeper, year to date.

Microsoft (MSFT) was also impacted by one-time items on its bottom line, but these were to the positive, including a $3.2 billion gain from Anthropic. Earnings overall reached $4.74 per share on $90.01 billion in revenues, easily bettering the estimates of $4.21 per share and $87.44 billion, respectively. CapEx spending was in-line at $41 billion, on pace for its guided full-year rate of $190 billion. Azure growth was strong, +43%, while Co-Pilot seats have doubled in the past three quarters.

Qualcomm (QCOM - Free Report) shares are off their late-market lows, -4.4%, on a one-cent miss on earnings to $2.21 per share, down -20% year over year. Revenues, on the other hand, reached $9.95 billion, well ahead of the $9.71 billion in the Zacks consensus. Next-quarter earnings guidance lowered to $2.15 per share at the midpoint, as Chinese smartphone business fell in the quarter. Qualcomm intends to shift toward non-handset chips as its main revenue source in the future.

Starbucks (SBUX - Free Report) was also mixed in its fiscal Q3 report today, beating solidly on earnings — +85 cents per share, versus +66 cents expected, up from 50 cents per share a year ago. Revenues of $9.3 billion, however, were below the $9.44 billion analysts were expecting. It’s the fourth-straight month of comp growth, meaning CEO Brian Niccol’s turnaround looks to be in effect. Shares are up nearly +7% on the news.

Speaking of Brian Niccol, his former company, Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG - Free Report) posted modest outperformance on both top and bottom lines this afternoon, beating on the bottom line by a penny to $0.33 per share on revenues of $3.35 billion, a smidge above the $3.32 billion anticipated. Comps sales rose +2.2% in the quarter. Notably, no cyclospora contagion hit the company during the Q2. Shares are up +2.7% on the news.