CNBC Business News Update - Market Open: Stocks Higher, AMD Leads Chip Comeback, Fed Decision On Rates 2pm ET 7/31/25

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

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 and reported by CNBC's Jessica Ettinger.

I'm Jessica Edinger, CNBC. The final day of July trading is here. Bond yields are lower this morning, the 10-year at its lowest since last March, pushing stocks higher. AMD shares are higher, leading a chip comeback too today. The Dow is up 16 points. The S&P 500 index up 67 points.

That's more than 1%. The NASDAQ is now up 353 points, more than 2% this morning. Investors waiting for a Fed decision on interest rates coming this afternoon. It's widely expected to hold them steady, but Fed Chair Jay Powell may hint a rate cut could be coming in September when he answers questions. That happens at 2.30 p.m. Eastern today. I think that they will signal that a cut is likely coming in September. But what we should not forget is that we still have two more CPI releases before the September 18 FOMC meeting. So yes, inflation has come down, significant improvement. But if we still have two more inflation prints, I think the signal today will be if inflation continues to move down, then we are likely to cut interest rates in September.

Apollo Global chief economist Torsten Slocke on CNBC. By the way, the average rate on a 30-year fixed home loan is sitting at 6.8 percent today, according to Mortgage News Daily. That could fall by the end of the day with the yield on the 10-year Treasury down. Fewer private sector jobs created in July than expected at 122,000, according to ADP, as the job market returns more to normal. Wages for those who stayed in their jobs rose by 4.8 percent, which is the smallest increase in three years, but sounds like a lot to people who only get a 3% raise every year. The price of oil has been dropping for weeks until strikes escalated in the Middle East. U.S. crude today

back above $77 a barrel. That's up 3%. Delta Airlines CEO telling CNBC that the crowd strike Microsoft IT outage that went global and left passengers stranded for as long as a week cost Delta a half billion dollars, and Delta's poised to sue those IT giants. It was terrible. It was terrible. And apologies again to our customers, our people, I mean, all of you guys. We had brought so much of the production crews, the athletes over. It was just a really, really tough situation. Delta CEO Ed Bastian with CNBC's Squawk Box anchors who were live at the Olympics in Paris today. Meantime, on Reddit, plenty of Delta flyers complaining they were denied reimbursement from the airline for everything from the plane tickets they had to buy on other airlines to get

home to hotel rooms they got after sleeping on airport floors. Boeing's new CEO comes from Collins Aerospace, Kelly Ortberg, the CEO of Collins, replacing Dave Calhoun at the troubled planemaker at the end of the year. Ticket resaler StubHub being sued by the Washington, D.C. Attorney General for deceptive pricing by hiding fees. Hostess out with a new mystery flavor of Twinkies in grocery stores now for a limited time. Jessica Ettinger, CNBC. When you're at your very top speed, it feels like you can run forever. And then there's this one moment where everybody else starts to die.

And you're like, I'm not about to die. I'm about to get faster.