CNBC Business News Update - Market Open: Stocks Slightly Higher, Investors Wait for Fed Rate Decision, Jobless Claims Inch Toward 250k 6/18/25

Episode Date: June 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.

I'm Jessica Edinger CNBC. Wall Street is in the green this morning. The Dow now popping 173 points, four tenths of a percent being led higher by JP Morgan shares, which are up more than 2%. The S&P 500 index now up 25 points now, a half percent. Nvidia shares are up a half percent this morning. U.S. steel no longer on the New York Stock Exchange today, as Japan's Nippon steel has finalized its takeover. President Trump spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about its conflict with Iran. Iran has threatened the U.S. with irreparable damage if it enters the conflict. More people applied for unemployment benefits last week

than the pre-pandemic average at 245,000. This will be the one, two, third week in a row it's been somewhat elevated in just a not below 250,000 big psychological area. CNBC's Rick Santelli and more people are continuing to have to collect those unemployment checks suggesting it's

taking people longer to find their next job. Here's Rick again on continuing claims once again above 1.9 million 1 million 945 thousand that now becomes a fourth consecutive read over 1.9 million. These are comping to November of 2021. Investors got a fresh read today on the new construction home business. And it's all about building new apartment buildings, not single family homes. Here's CNBC's Diana Olek. Building permits, which is of course an indication of future construction. Single family is down sharply both month to month,

year over year. Multi-family though taking a slight bump up and that's interesting because we have started to see rents move a little bit higher in multi-family. All that new supply coming in, but there's such strong demand for rental apartments right now. Why?

Because people are not buying homes. They're also staying in their apartments longer. And that's why you're starting to see developers say, hey, wait a minute. Yes, we put all this into the pipeline. It was all delivered, but we're still under supplied and we need to start building again. So multifamily permits were up pretty strongly up 13% year over year. The Fed will announce a decision on interest rates this afternoon. it's expected to leave them right where they are as inflation is not yet back at the 2% target. Inflation sitting around 2.4% now. Some forecast tariff price increases have yet to kick in, which would push inflation

higher. They're saying we do have a higher than normal or even a higher than needed funds rate. We'd like to bring it down, but we can't right now because the prevailing uncertainty over, you know, which tariffs are there, which tariffs remain, what happens on July 9th? That's CNBC's senior economics reporter, Steve Leesman. The TikTok ban deadline, it's extended for a third time.

The Chinese-owned app sits on the phones of half the adult US population. By law, it needs to be sold or banned in the U.S. as a security and propaganda threat. General Mills has joined Kraft Heinz in saying dyes will be removed from foods by 2027. Toymaker Hasbro blaming the Trump tariffs for forcing it to cut jobs saying it's facing higher costs and now has to fire 3% of its workforce. Tomorrow is Juneteenth.

The financial markets will be closed. Jessica Edinger, CNBC. You come to my show and you learn how to do stocks. Mad Money, weeknight 6 Eastern, CNBC.