Review & Preview: Another Day, Another Record

Sep 18, 2025 17:37:00 -0400 by Sabrina Escobar | #Markets #Review & Preview

Déjà-Vu. Stocks have been breaking so many records lately that it’s starting to feel par for the course.

All three indexes closed at new highs on Thursday. The S&P 500 gained 0.5%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.9%. It’s the 26th time that the S&P 500 has closed at a high this year; the Dow has notched five new records, while the Nasdaq has 27.

Even the Russell 2000 set a record, its first since 2021. The small-cap index closed 2.5% higher on Thursday.

The rally is a delayed response to the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, as well as Fed officials’ expectations that there are more cuts to come.

A rate-cutting cycle, combined with a record-setting stock market run and an economy that continues to grow—albeit at a slower pace than the past few years—is a bullish dynamic for stocks, writes Robert Schein, chief investment officer of Blanke Schein Wealth Management.

Now that rates have been moving lower and the Federal Reserve is looking to cut rates a few more times, we are even more bullish on Big Tech and financials stocks. Big Tech stocks tend to outperform during lower interest rate environments, and financials may see a boost from additional M&A and mortgage activity that may come about from lower rates.

Indeed, tech stocks had a good day on Thursday, driven by big news for Intel. The stock jumped 23% after Nvidia said it would invest $5 billion as part of an agreement that will see the tech companies co-develop custom data centers and PC products. It was the stock’s largest percent increase since October 1987.

“The Nvidia deal could offer a boost to Intel’s products division, which concerns the development and sale of chips for PCs and data centers,” writes my colleague Mackenzie Tatananni. “However, it won’t do much to resolve fundamental issues with the foundry.”

Barron’s Adam Levine has more on the four problems that Nvidia solves for Intel. And the one big problem that it doesn’t.

Company

Last

Chg

Chg%

Dow Jones Industrial Average

46,315.27

172.85

0.37%

S&P 500 Index

6,664.36

32.40

0.49%

NASDAQ Composite Index

22,631.48

160.75

0.72%

Market Data as of

The Hot Stock: Intel +22.8%
The Biggest Loser: FactSet Research Systems -10.4%

Best Sector: Technology +1.7%
Worst Sector: Consumer Staples -0.9%

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1Thursday, Sept. 18Index performanceSource: FactSetAs of Sept. 19, 4 p.m. ET

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1Sept. 19-0.100.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.8%Nasdaq CompositeS&P 500Dow industrials

Appealing to a Higher Power

Fed Day may be over, but the drama at the central bank continues.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump petitioned the Supreme Court to allow him to fire Fed Gov. Lisa Cook.

The petition essentially asks the justices to lift lower court decisions, which have thus far allowed Cook to keep serving on the Fed’s Board of Governors until the legal case moves forward (Cook was in attendance at the central bank’s September policy meeting, voting alongside most of her colleagues to lower interest rates on Wednesday).

“This application involves yet another case of improper judicial interference with the president’s removal authority—here, interference with the president’s authority to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for cause,” wrote D. John Sauer, solicitor general at the Department of Justice, in the filing.

The legal battle between Trump and Cook began in late August. Trump terminated Cook after “Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte alleged that Cook made false claims on mortgage documents in 2021 that may have secured her more favorable loan terms,” wrote my colleagues Nicole Goodkind and Megan Leonhardt. Trump cited that allegation as a cause for dismissal, sparking a volley of cases between Cook and the administration.

Read more about Cook’s Supreme Court case here.

If Trump succeeds in firing Cook and picks a replacement, he would have nominated four out of the seven Fed Governors, creating a majority. The president’s latest appointee, Stephen Miran, was confirmed by the Senate on Monday and sworn into the Fed board on Tuesday, just in time to vote at the FOMC meeting. Miran joins the Fed directly from the White House, where he is on leave as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Miran’s confirmation and Trump’s efforts to remove Cook have reignited investor concerns about the Fed’s independence from political influences. At Wednesday’s post-FOMC meeting press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell refused to comment on whether Cook’s legal case had implications for the central bank’s independence.

He did say, however, that when it comes to determining monetary policy, the Fed remains staunchly opposed to framing the issues in terms of “political outcomes,” and played down the power any single voter has in swaying Fed policy. Powell pointed out that there are 19 members of the FOMC committee, a dozen of whom vote.

“The only way for any voter to really move things around is to be incredibly persuasive,” Powell said. “And the only way to do that in the context in which we work is to make really strong arguments based on the data and one’s understanding of the economy. That’s really all that matters. And that’s how it’s going to work.”

The Calendar

The Bank of Japan announces its monetary-policy decision tomorrow. The BoJ is expected to keep its key short-term interest rate unchanged at 0.5%. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba resigned last week after his ruling Liberal Democratic Party suffered election losses over the summer. Yields on 30-year Japanese bonds hit a record high amid the political turmoil. One of the front-runners to replace Ishiba, Sanae Takaichi, has advocated for a looser monetary policy and has criticized the BoJ for hiking interest rates in the past year.

What We’re Reading Today

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