April 29, 2026

The Federal Reserve's interest rate decision will be announced today

International

This afternoon at 2:00 p.m. New York time, the Federal Reserve (Fed) will announce its interest rate decision. The benchmark rate is expected to remain unchanged, in the current range of 3.50%–3.75%, although attention will focus on the subsequent press conference by Jerome Powell, the current chair of the Fed, who will step down in May.

Yesterday, major U.S. stock indices fell across the board. The S&P 500 dropped 0.5%, while the Nasdaq fell 0.9%. The Dow Jones, meanwhile, fell another 0.1% yesterday. Thus, so far this year, the indices have accumulated gains of 4.3%, 6.1%, and 2.2%, respectively.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury yield curve continued to steepen yesterday. The 1-year Treasury yield moved from 3.68% to 3.69%, while the 3-year yield rose from 3.82% to 3.86%. At the longer end, the 10-year yield rose from 4.34% to 4.35%.

Finally, yesterday Visa, T-Mobile, Welltower, Booking, Seagate, and Starbucks, among other companies, reported their Q1 2026 results, in every case beating expectations for both revenue and earnings per share (EPS). Today, the focus will be particularly on the earnings reports from Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, following the market close.

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