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Luke Kawa9/18/24

Federal Reserve delivers jumbo rate cut

The Federal Reserve acted decisively in starting its easing cycle with a 50 basis point cut, taking its policy rate down to a range of 4.75 to 5%.

Monetary policymakers expect to deliver 100 basis points of easing in total this year if the economy unfolds in line with their expectations. That’s not far off the 117 basis points worth of rate cuts that traders envisaged as of the close on Tuesday.

“The Committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent, and judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance,” according to the central bank’s statement announcing the decision.

Greater concern about the state of the US job market appears to have prompted central bank officials to act aggressively. Back in June, the median monetary policymaker thought the US unemployment rate would be at 4% at the end of this year and 4.2% at the end of 2025; those estimates were revised to 4.4% for both years.

In the minutes ahead of the decision, markets had priced a 50 basis cut as only slightly more likely than a smaller one. Most economists, on the other hand, had pencilled in a 25 basis point cut.

Small cap stocks ripped higher, with the Russell 2000 up 1.6% in the minutes following the release. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 have had a positive, but more muted, response. Risk assets are paring their gains ahead of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference.

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J. Edward Moreno6h

Hims’ COO to step into advisory role months after joining the company

Hims & Hers Chief Operating Officer Nader Kabbani — an Amazon veteran who joined the telehealth company in May — will leave his post next month, the company announced in a Thursday regulatory filing.

Kabbani will begin an advisory role with the company starting November 2 and Mike Chi, who is currently the company’s chief commercial officer, will assume Kabbani’s title and duties.

Kabbani, who helped launch Amazon Pharmacy at the robotics company Symbiotic, took over from Melissa Baird, the company’s longtime COO who transitioned to an advisory role earlier this year.

Kabbani joined Hims at a tumultuous time. The company saw explosive growth when it started selling copies of popular weight-loss drugs made by Novo Nordisk last year while they were in shortage. But now that those supply constraints have waned, it’s limited in how much it can continue selling. Meanwhile its core business has slowed down, which resulted in disappointing revenue numbers in its most recent quarterly report.

Tasha Matsumoto

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 post second consecutive all-time closing highs

This is the 30th closing high for the benchmark index in 2025.

CHICAGO, IL - JANUARY 14: Chicago Bulls mascot Benny the Bull during a game against the New Orleans Pelicans and the Chicago Bulls on January 14, 2025 at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois.

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Matt Phillips10h

AST SpaceMobile surges as satellite services theme gains market traction

Space stocks jumped on Thursday, led by a surge in AST SpaceMobile after Bell Canada named the Texas-based satellite services provider as a partner for a new direct-to-cellular service it plans to offer next year.

AST is up more than 20% just this week after announcing that its latest Bluebird 6 satellite was assembled, tested, and ready for launch and that its launch schedule appears to be on track.

“AST reiterated its expectation of launches every one to two months on average during 2025 and 2026, which is expected to result in between 45 and 60 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026,” wrote Louie DePalma, an analyst at William Blair. “Reaching 45 to 60 satellites in orbit is significant because it allows for continuous broadband coverage for AST’s core markets in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. We view this update positively.”

Space and satellite stocks Rocket Lab and Planet Labs ascended alongside AST Thursday. But all of these stocks are, in a sense, drafting off dynamics being driven by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the leader in the private space sector.

The company has played a key role in lowering the costs of space launches, thereby “fostering intense competition and accelerating innovation across the sector. This has led to significantly lower launch prices, reshaping the economics of deploying large-scale Low Earth Orbit constellations,” wrote Barclays analysts in a recent note on the outlook for the satellite industry. This has opened up new possibilities such as providing consumer broadband services, they noted.

Bell Canada to roll out direct-to-cell satellite service in 2026

Bell Canada to roll out direct-to-cell satellite service in 2026

“AST reiterated its expectation of launches every one to two months on average during 2025 and 2026, which is expected to result in between 45 and 60 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026,” wrote Louie DePalma, an analyst at William Blair. “Reaching 45 to 60 satellites in orbit is significant because it allows for continuous broadband coverage for AST’s core markets in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. We view this update positively.”

Space and satellite stocks Rocket Lab and Planet Labs ascended alongside AST Thursday. But all of these stocks are, in a sense, drafting off dynamics being driven by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the leader in the private space sector.

The company has played a key role in lowering the costs of space launches, thereby “fostering intense competition and accelerating innovation across the sector. This has led to significantly lower launch prices, reshaping the economics of deploying large-scale Low Earth Orbit constellations,” wrote Barclays analysts in a recent note on the outlook for the satellite industry. This has opened up new possibilities such as providing consumer broadband services, they noted.

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Bloom Energy falls as Mizuho downgrades the stock to “neutral” from “outperform”

There’s an immense need for power to fuel the AI data centers playing the starring role in driving up electricity prices.

Mizuho just isn’t sure that the high-flying fuel cell company Bloom Energy is well placed to provide it.

Analyst Maheep Mandloi cited the firm’s internal constraints on growth in lowering his rating on the stock to “neutral” from “outperform,” suggesting that Bloom will likely need to develop a bigger pipeline of customers before expanding its manufacturing footprint.

Still, he hiked his price target to $79 from $48 while downgrading the stock.

Last week, JPMorgan flagged that retail traders were beginning to sour on the shares, which had enjoyed a massive run-up that kicked into high gear thanks to a deal with Oracle announced in late July to supply power to data centers.

Wall Street is broadly negative on Bloom Energy, relative to most of the universe of the stocks the sell side covers. Its consensus rating, per analysts polled by Bloomberg, is just shy of 3.35. For reference, that’s a worse average rating than nearly 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 (which Bloom is not a part of).

Jefferies downgraded the stock last week on the same day Bank of America analysts wrote, “We are still not buying into BE’s AI hype.” Nonetheless, most are still revising price targets higher to account for the stock’s move. But all that leaves the average price target well below where the shares are currently trading.

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Matt Phillips12h

Western Digital, a top S&P stock over the last month, is attracting retail traders

We’ve been covering the sudden sexiness of data storage as a market theme a lot recently, with Western Digital and Seagate Technology Holdings turning into top trades of 2025.

The makers of relatively affordable data storage devices known as hard disk drives were leading the S&P 500 until recently, when they were supplanted by an index newbie.

WDC JPM Retail Radar Chart — A chart from JPM’s Retail Radar note showing increased retail buying of WDC.

But Western Digital, which has been trading at a discount to Seagate due to its spottier earnings record over the last couple years, seems to have suddenly found fans among the unwashed stock-trading masses, with JPMorgan’s always informative Retail Radar note spotlighting “strong buying in WDC rally” Wednesday as they climbed aboard a rally that has carried the shares up more than 60% over the last month.

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