- The major stock indices were all down Wednesday as the Federal Reserve released meeting minutes in which policymakers said the U.S. faces “difficult tradeoffs” in the coming months if inflation persists and growth stalls.
Stocks dipped Wednesday as investors interpreted recent meeting minutes published by the Federal Reserve and waited for tech giant Nvidia to report its first-quarter earnings results. The S&P 500 posted a daily decline of 0.6%, the Nasdaq was down 0.5%, and the Dow Jones dropped 0.6%.
In the early afternoon, the U.S. central bank released a summary of an early May policy meeting in which top Fed officials decided to hold interest rates steady. The S&P 500 dropped slightly in the first hour after the meeting recap became public. Fed policymakers acknowledged in the minutes that the U.S. faces “difficult tradeoffs” in the coming months if inflation persists while economic growth and employment numbers weaken.
The Fed also observed that the “uncertainty about the economic outlook had increased further” amid the unexpected size and scope of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. In fact, policymakers attributed the recent economic chaos mainly to Trump’s trade war. “Participants judged that downside risks to employment and economic activity and upside risks to inflation had risen, primarily reflecting the potential effects of tariff increases,” read the release.
Meanwhile, investors awaited quarterly results from tech giant Nvidia after markets close Wednesday afternoon. The $3.3 trillion chipmaker is the second largest public company in the U.S. by market capitalization.
Nvidia has enjoyed a rapid rise in its stock amid the recent AI zeitgeist, and analysts who cover the tech titan all had a positive or neutral take on the company’s stock before its earnings report. One, however, was more pessimistic. “Nvidia’s had a great run, and nothing lasts forever,” wrote Jay Goldberg of Seaport Research Partners.
Despite two months marked by back-and-forth threats of surcharges on international imports, Trump was quiet on Wednesday. Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, said Tuesday evening that the U.S. and Canada were in talks for an economic and security deal that would hopefully remove hefty tariffs.
Wednesday’s slight dip in the stock markets followed a Tuesday surge. Trump said he would delay tariffs on the European Union to July 9 after posting on social media over the weekend that he would impose a 50% tax on exports from the international bloc beginning June 1.
