CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Stocks Higher, Nvidia Higher On Investment In Intel, Spirit Airlines Cuts More Flights 9/18/25

Episode Date: September 18, 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'm Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. Wall Street this afternoon is in the green. Investors jumping back into tech shares today after the Fed cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point yesterday. The Dow is up 93 points. It's being led higher by shares of Nvidia, which are up more than 3% this afternoon. The S&P 500 index is up 34 points, a half percent. The NASDAQ up 213 points, almost 1%. The Fed cut a quarter percentage point yesterday and sees two more cuts this year and one for next year. Some investors are cautious about this. The Fed came out with a dot plot that did surprise everyone, suggesting three cuts while the market's pricing in two and a half. And here's the rub, is that their outlook on the economy was that it's much weaker than they were previously telegraphing.

That was the surprise in terms of the commentary. And that sets up sort of a good news, bad news. Good news. We could get two more cuts. Bad news. The economy could go much weaker and we could see that reflect in earnings. Chantico Global's Gina Sanchez on CNBC. Fewer people than expected applied for unemployment benefits last week as investors watch the labor market that seems to be rolling over. Intel shares are soaring. InVIDIA will invest $5 billion in the chipmaker to co-developed data center and PC chips. Here's more from CNBC's Carl Kintanilla and Mad Money host Jim Kramer. In a release this morning, NVIDIA's Jensen Wong, said, quote, this historic collaboration tightly couples NVIDIA's AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel's CPUs

and the vast X86 ecosystem. This will be one of the best days price action-wise Intel's ever had. This is a remarkable thing for both. It takes off Intel, any possibility that it's going to be an existential crisis. It needed a lot of money. It had the government. It had soft bank. Now it has invidium. I'm not worried at all about Intel, national treasure. Olive Garden parent Darden restaurants out with mixed quarterly results, but it raised its outlook for full year revenue growth. Novo Nordisk shares popping after a trial for a new Wagovi pill

showed what the drug maker calls significant weight reduction. The race for a weight loss pill is on, and generally pills have shown less efficacy than injections. But Novo says it's daily pill had about the same efficacy as a weekly injection. Spirit Airlines cutting more flights heading into the holidays and preparing its workers for more cuts as it operates under bankruptcy protection. Amazon wants you to get into holiday shopping in three weeks with its prime big deal days event set for October 7th and 8th. Retail dive says Target will compete. Walmart is expected to hold a sale at about the same time. Major retailers did the same thing last year. Divers have recovered artifacts from the Titanic's sister ship Britannic for the first time.

The ocean liner sank after hitting a mine in World War I off the coast of Greece. It was being used as a hospital ship. The items will be displayed in a museum in Greece. Jessica Erringer, CNBC. CNBC is the network for ambitious people.