CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Stocks Higher, Investors Wait For 2pm ET Fed Decision, UCLA Anderson Recession Watch 3/19/25

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

From Wall Street to Main Street, the latest on the markets and what it means for your money. Updated regularly on weekdays, featuring CNBC expert analysis and sound from top business newsmakers. Anchored by CNBC's Jessica Ettinger.

I'm Jessica Edinger CNBC Wall Street having a nice stock pop this afternoon. Gains are accelerating. The Dow is up 313 points, three quarters percent. Boeing shares leading the Dow higher. They're up six and a half percent this afternoon. The S&P 500 index up 49 points. That's eight tenths of a percent. The NASDAQ now up 203 points. That's eight tenths of a percent. The NASDAQ now up 203 points.

That's a little more than 1%. Nvidia shares up almost 2%. Tesla shares are up 4.5% this afternoon. Now Boeing, which we mentioned, is leading the Dow higher. It's doing so on upbeat remarks by the CFO at a conference. Boeing shares on pace for their best days since the summer of 2023. Investors are waiting for a decision on interest rates from the Federal Reserve.

It's widely expected to leave them unchanged. Investors then will be listening to hear what the central bank has to say on the economy and the future path for interest rates. The Fed does have some challenges to look at in terms of soft data has turned quite negative, but we know that soft data being a lot of the sentiment data, but we know that a lot of that sentiment data may or may not translate through into economic activity. But watching that economic activity, it puts the Fed in kind of a challenging spot longer term if this uncertainty doesn't clear up. BMO's Carol Schleif on CNBC.

She mentions uncertainty brought on by tariffs and trade war fears with the new administration and a first ever recession watch has been issued by a long time highly regarded economic think tank. The UCLA Anderson forecast for the first time since it was founded in 1952, issued what it called a recession watch, warning that the combination of the president's policies, if fully enacted, could cause an economic contraction. This is a forecast that administration officials from the president on down have not specifically ruled out.

CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Leesman, UCLA Anderson's forecast says that Trump policies, if fully enacted, promise a recession. More Americans are trading inside their 401Ks to try to preserve gains with the S&P 500 index down 4% already this year. But CNBC's Sharon Epperson spoke with Sun Welch, Winnie Sun, about doing this. Now, some investors probably should rebalance their portfolios after two years of strong stock market gains, but financial advisors say first you need a plan.

Don't make large movements in your 401k unless you know why exactly that you're doing that. And the answer can't just be because I'm nervous. It has to be like, well, I'm gonna need this money in the next six months or 12 months. She says you should have a plan for funding an emergency like a job loss with ample cash reserves, as well as investing for future goals like retirement. So that way you have the ability to pivot. Fewer people applied for mortgages last week. Interest rates popped up for the first time in nine weeks.

Today, the average rate on a 30-year fixed home loan? 6.7 percent, according to Mortgage News Daily. Morgan Stanley planning to cut 2,000 workers this month to streamline the business. Financial advisors are said not to be affected. More than a third of American adults are now paying for music streaming subscriptions as the number of subscribers hit 100 million, according to the Recording Industry Association. Jessica Ettinger, CNBC.