CNBC Business News Update - Market Open: Stocks Higher, Fed Decision On Interest Rates Coming Today, UCLA Anderson Issues First 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 Evinger CNBC Wall Street is in the green this morning. It's the final day of winter trading. This is after yesterday's sell off for stocks. A decision on interest rates comes later at 2 p.m. Eastern from the Fed. The Dow is up 131 points this morning being led higher by shares of Boeing, which are popping 5% the S andP 500 index up 13 points, the NASDAQ up 52 points. Nvidia shares are slightly higher this morning. Tesla shares in the green, they're up 2.5%. Microsoft shares are slightly higher, even though it's on pace for its eighth negative week in a row, its longest losing streak in 16 years. 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. PMO'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 percent already this year. But CNBC's Sharon Epperson spoke with Sunn-Welts' Winnie Sunn 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 going to 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.