During a roaring rally over the past two sessions, much has been made about trades like financials that may gain advantage from President-elect Donald Trump’s policy.

But a few of the market’s biggest movers this week have once more been from the market’s largest stocks. Roundhill’s Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS) — which tracks Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), Tesla (TSLA), and Nvidia (NVDA) — hit a fresh record high on Thursday.

The index is up over 8% during the last five days, outperforming the S&P 500’s (^GSPC) 4.69%.

Powell had a straightforward but poignant response when asked if he’d resign if President-elect Donald Trump asked him to step down.

“No.”

All three of the main stock indexes were headed for record closes on Thursday as investors digested a subdued press conference from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose roughly 0.9%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) moved up greater than 1.6% and shares of chip heavyweight Nvidia (NVDA) and e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) rose to latest highs.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose about 0.2% on the heels of a 1,500-point gain that marked the blue-chip gauge’s best day since 2022.

Each average moved higher as Powell’s presser ended.

Powell dodged multiple political-focused questions during his press conference, which is unsurprising on condition that the election occurred lower than 48 hours ago. It is also not a surprise considering his contentious relationship with President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump, who often criticized Powell during his first term in office, had told Bloomberg in a July interview that he’d let the central bank leader serve out his term, “especially if I assumed he was doing the fitting thing,” he said on the time.

But Trump has often flip-flopped his stance on Powell. Just just a few months prior to the aforementioned Bloomberg interview, Trump said he wouldn’t reappoint the Fed chair, accusing the central bank leader of manipulating rates to provide Democrats an edge within the election.

On Thursday, when asked if a sitting US president has the fitting to fireplace or demote a Fed chair or any of the Fed governors, Powell simply replied: “It isn’t permitted under the law.”

The latest reading of the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge showed year-over-year price increases didn’t fall in September.

The core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, which strips out the associated fee of food and energy and is closely watched by the Federal Reserve, rose 2.7% in September, above Wall Street’s expectations for two.6% and according to the two.7% seen in August.

But during Thursday’s press conference Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted that the Fed also looks on the three- and six-month annualized rates of Core PCE to discover trends. Our chart below shows the three- and six-month annualized rates are at 2.3%.

Broadly, Powell said the information is showing “that we actually have made significant progress.”

Because the Fed began cutting rates of interest, the 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX) rose roughly 80 basis points to hit a recent high of about 4.47%.

On Thursday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that move higher was likely not “principally about higher inflation expectations.”

He reasoned the move higher was more likely driven by better-than-expected economic growth.

Powell later added that for higher bond yields to affect Fed policy they would want to see “material changes in financial conditions that “last” and “are persistent.”

“We do not know that about these what we have seen thus far,” Powell said.

In a press conference that kicked off at 2:30 p.m. ET following the Federal Reserve’s latest policy decision, Fed Chair Jerome Powell addressed the election results, noting the central bank is not going to make decisions based on expected policy changes from a latest administration.

“Within the near term, the election can have no effect on our policy decisions,” he said. “We do not know what the timing and substance of any policy changes shall be. We, due to this fact, do not know what the consequences on the economy could be. Specifically, whether and to what extent those policies would matter for the achievement of our goal variables: maximum employment and price stability.”

In comparison with the present Biden administration, Trump and his proposed policies have been viewed as more inflationary given his campaign guarantees of high tariffs on imported goods, tax cuts, and curbs on immigration.

“We do not guess. We do not speculate, and we do not assume,” Powell continued, adding that it’s possible any administration’s policies or policies put in place by Congress could generate economic effects that the Fed would address at the moment if deemed appropriate.

In a widely anticipated move, the Federal Reserve cut rates of interest by 1 / 4 of a percentage point on Thursday.

After a half a percentage point cut in September, Thursday’s unanimous decision move brings the central bank’s benchmark rate right down to a variety of 4.5% to 4.75%.

Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger reports:

This latest cut was justified, in response to the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee, in support of its goals to take care of stable prices and full employment.

Nonetheless, the central bank removed language from its policy statement that the “committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably towards 2%,” raising questions on the pace and variety of future rate cuts.

As an alternative the policy statement read: “the Committee judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance.”

Read more here.

The Fed’s next policy decision is lower than half-hour away. Here’s a have a look at where markets sit before Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s closely followed press conference at 2:30 p.m. ET.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) was up 0.6%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) moved up than 1.2% as shares of chip heavyweight Nvidia (NVDA) and e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) rose to latest highs.

Broadly, Big Tech led the market motion, with all the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks up greater than 1% on the day, led by greater than 3% pop in Meta (META).

In bonds, a recent move higher in yields took a breather, with the 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX) falling about 7 basis points to 4.35%.

Below is a have a look at the sector motion for the day where Information Technology (XLK) is leading the best way.

Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger reports:

The Federal Reserve is anticipated to chop rates of interest by 25 basis points Thursday and avoid any unnecessary surprises lower than two days after the election of Donald Trump as the subsequent president.

“They’d quite just cut, keep their heads down and never say anything all that latest,” said Luke Tilley, chief economist for Wilmington Trust.

Still, that doesn’t mean the discussion today in Washington will necessarily be a smooth one.

Fed policymakers can have to make sense of recent data indicating a strong economy, persistent inflation, and a muddled jobs market disrupted by weather and employee strikes.

And there might be a debate between those that need to cut, those that could support a pause, and those that would support a cut combined with language designed to speak a more gradual approach to future reductions.

Read more here.

The stock market’s feverish rally following Donald Trump’s presidential election victory can have just been an early appetizer for a robust few months of gains.

“Exuberance lies ahead,” Julian Emanuel, who leads the equity, derivatives, and quantitative strategy team at Evercore ISI, wrote in a note to clients Wednesday night. “President-Elect Trump will move fast on policy initiatives, and stocks will move fast in response.”

Emanuel, who already had a 6,000 call on the S&P 500 for 2024, now sees the S&P 500 hitting 6,600 by the tip of June 2025, about an 11% increase from its current level. A “public reengaged in speculation,” as evidenced by Wednesday’s market motion with bitcoin (BTC-USD) hitting 76,000 for the primary time and Tesla (TSLA) stock soaring 14%, could help drive the benchmark index higher, per Emanuel.

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance’s Claire Boston reports:

Mortgage rates rose for a sixth consecutive week, following Treasury yields as they climbed higher through the presidential election.

The common 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to six.79% through Wednesday, up from 6.72% per week earlier, in response to Freddie Mac data. The common 15-year fixed-rate mortgage was essentially unchanged, to six% from 5.99%.

Mortgage rates typically mirror 10-year Treasury yields, which rose quickly in recent weeks as traders grew increasingly confident that former President Donald Trump would win Tuesday’s election and implement inflationary policies like tariffs.

Read more here.

About 24 hours after Donald Trump won the presidential election, American CEOs are already weighing on how the president-elect’s policies could impact their business.

For one, Trump’s proposed increases on tariffs are expected to weigh on retailers. On Wednesday, Steve Madden (SHOO) CEO Edward Rosenfeld said his company has been “planning for a possible scenario by which we’d need to move goods out of China more quickly.”

“Our goal over the subsequent 12 months is to cut back that percentage of products that we sourced from China by roughly 40% to 45%, which implies that if we’re in a position to achieve that and we expect we have now the plan to do it, that a 12 months from today, we could be taking a look at just over 1 / 4 of our business that may be subject to potential tariffs on Chinese goods,” the shoemaker’s CEO said.

Trump’s presidency can be expected to be less restrictive on mergers and acquisitions. Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) CEO David Zaslav said Thursday Trump’s second term could provide a possibility for more consolidation within the media industry.

“We now have an upcoming latest administration, and it’s too early to inform, nevertheless it may offer a pace of change and a possibility for consolidation which may be quite different,” Zaslav said on a call with analysts following the corporate’s third quarter results.

Raymond James analysts on Thursday downgraded shares of DHI (DHI), saying that within the wake of Trump’s election win, they view mortgage rates staying “higher for longer” and constraining housing affordability.

The investment firm downgraded DHI to Market Perform from Outperform but kept the identical price goal at $195.00. It lowered its fiscal 12 months 2025 EPS estimates to $13.25 from $15.80 and projects an EPS estimate of $15.00 within the fiscal 12 months of 2026.

Resulting from “the near-term pressures we see on entry level homebuilders, whose core first-time buyers are more likely to face even greater affordability challenges this spring,” Buck Horne, director at Raymond James & Associates, wrote in a note to clients.

“Coming out of a volatile October, DHI was already facing pressure from a more competitive inventory environment, rising rates, and buyers’ election anxiety,” Horne added.

The bearish call comes as DHI reported weaker-than-expected home orders for its fiscal fourth quarter as high mortgage rates dampened buyer affordability.

Netflix (NFLX) stock has surged to a different all-time high as tech rallies after Donald Trump clinched victory over Kamala Harris within the presidential election.

The stock is currently trading above $790 a share and has climbed greater than 60% for the reason that start of the 12 months, with 10% gains over the past month — far outpacing broader markets.

The moves higher extend beyond the recent Trump-fueled rally, nonetheless, as Netflix stands out amongst a listing of battered media sector names.

The streamer has added greater than 50 million paying subscribers since launching its password crackdown in May 2023. Its projected full-year operating margins are expected to hit 27%, with management hinting the corporate has the potential to eventually secure margins much like broadcast networks, which historically have been within the range of 40% to 50%.

And in the primary three quarters of 2024, Netflix pulled in roughly $6.9 billion in net income. Its competitors aren’t even close.

Disney (DIS) and Paramount Global (PARA) just reported their first quarter of profits of their respective streaming businesses earlier this summer. A shift for the industry, yes, but not a cure-all for the issues which have plagued traditional media, with Comcast (CMCSA) probably the most recent company to weigh spinning off its cable networks.

“Netflix is clearly running away with the ball and the media-based streaming firms are struggling to even get on the sphere,” Barton Crockett, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities, previously told Yahoo Finance.

Read more about Netflix’s dominance here and why analysts say it’s won the hard-fought streaming wars.

Lyft (LYFT) shares soared greater than 25% after its third quarter earnings beat expectations.

Lyft’s adjusted earnings per share of $0.29 were ahead of the $0.20 expected, while quarterly revenue of $1.5 billion beat Wall Street’s estimate of $1.4 billion, in response to Bloomberg consensus estimates. Rides for the period ended Sept. 30 totaled 217 million, above the 213 million expected.

On Wednesday, Lyft announced partnerships with autonomous vehicle firms because it looks to secure a foothold within the burgeoning market, adding driverless cabs to its network in Atlanta in 2025. Wall Street analysts in notes to investors Thursday gave kudos to Lyft’s expansions beyond ride-hailing.

“LYFT is not any longer a ride-hailing pure-play with it now embarking on partnerships in food delivery and AVs,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst and Lyft bull Brad Erickson. Lyft recently unveiled a partnership with DoorDash (DASH).

Still, analysts overall maintained Neutral rankings on the stock, with Wedbush analyst Scott Devitt, writing, “[W]e wait for clear evidence of a more sustainable growth trajectory for the business.”

Lyft shares are up 74% from last 12 months but far below highs within the $60 range in 2021.

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) briefly touched latest highs just north of $76,000, extending gains from Wednesday’s monster rally following Donald Trump’s White House win.

The cryptocurrency jumped to latest records on Wednesday and crypto-related stocks also rose following the presidential election results. Over the summer Trump promised to make the US the crypto capital of the world and form a ‘strategic bitcoin stockpile.’

Shares of AI chip heavyweight Nvidia (NVDA) and e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) each gained greater than 1% on Thursday, extending gains from Wednesday’s monster rally following Donald Trump’s White House victory.

Each stocks closed at all-time record highs on Wednesday.

Earlier this week Nvidia surpassed iPhone maker Apple (AAPL) as the biggest company on this planet. The bogus intelligence chipmaker is anticipated to hitch the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) on Friday, replacing semiconductor giant Intel (INTC).

Meanwhile, Amazon stock has been in an upward trend after the corporate posted a stronger-than-expected quarterly result last week. On Thursday, shares were trading just above $210 each.

One other batch of firms reported earnings Thursday morning.

Moderna (MRNA) jumped 5% on the market open as its earnings beat expectations partly due to better-than-anticipated COVID vaccine sales. Warner Bros. (WBD) jumped 10% due to streaming growth as Max subscribers soared. Meanwhile, Hershey (HSY) fell greater than 1% after sinking as much as 3% premarket as high cocoa prices cut into its sales outlook for the 12 months.

Here’s a better have a look at how the businesses performed:

Hershey: Adjusted earnings per share of $2.34 vs. $2.56 per share expected, revenue of $2.99 billion vs. $3.07 billion expected

Moderna: Earnings per share of $0.03 vs. a lack of $1.98 per share expected, revenue of $1.86 billion vs. $1.25 billion expected

Warner Bros.: Adjusted earnings per share of $0.05 vs. a lack of $0.12 per share expected, revenue of $9.62 billion vs. $9.81 billion expected

Meanwhile, energy firms traded flattish after showing mixed results as natural disasters impacted a few of their businesses. Duke Energy (DUK) saw its profits hit by hurricane costs, while Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG) missed on revenue just because it shut off power in Northern California amid fire risks. Nuclear power provider Vistra soared 11% after an earnings beat because it recovers from earlier losses.

Stocks prolonged their gains on Thursday following a monster rally on the heels of Donald Trump’s White House victory. The move higher in stocks comes ahead of the Federal Reserve’s rate of interest decision.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) inched up 0.1% while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose roughly 0.3%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) moved up 0.5% in any case three major averages closed at record highs on Wednesday.

As Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger reports, the Federal Reserve is anticipated to chop rates of interest by 25 basis points and avoid any unnecessary surprises after the election of Trump as the subsequent president.

Meanwhile, parts of the “Trump Trade” showed some signs of unwinding on Thursday as Trump Media & Technology Group stock (DJT) sank by double digits, reversing the gains it enjoyed within the prior session.