Live Updates
Get The Best Vanguard S&P 500 ETF Live Earnings Coverage Like This Every Quarter
Get earnings reminders, our top analysis on Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, market updates, and brand-new stock recommendations delivered directly to your inbox.
Live
Speaking before the Economic Club of Minnesota today, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is expected to call for the U.S. Federal Reserve to “not delay” but cut interest rates immediately. Lower interest rates, the Treasury Secretary will argue, is “the only ingredient missing for even stronger economic growth.”
CNBC says it has “exclusive access” to the Treasury Secretary’s notes, and broke the story premarket today, although the speech won’t actually happen until 12:45 p.m. ET.
In 2025, the Fed cut rates three times in a row, by 0.75% total, reducing federal target interest rates to a 3.5%-3.75% range.
This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.
The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) is trading down 0.1% premarket Thursday, and President Trump’s attacks on Big Business may be the reason.
In posts on Truth Social yesterday, the President criticized exorbitant and unjustifiable” executive pay packages at U.S. defense companies and announced he “will not permit” defense companies pay dividends or buy back stock. He promised to limit executive compensation at defense companies to no more than $5 million per year.
And he said defense companies aren’t producing weapons “rapidly enough and, once produced, not maintaining it properly or quickly” — comments hinting he wants to see the companies use their money to make more capital investments rather than pay dividends and buy back stock.
Shares of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) fell more than 4% yesterday, Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) was down nearly 5%, and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) lost 5.5%.
All three of those defense stocks are bouncing back premarket Thursday, granted, as the President put down the stick and took out the carrot, calling for Congress to grow the defense budget to $1.5 trillion in 2027.
Housing news
But now there’s a new angle of attack on Big Business.
Lamenting that the American Dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans,” the President says he is “immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes.” This time it’s private equity companies, real estate investment trusts (REITs) and other large institutional investors in the crosshairs.
Private equity giant Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO) fell 5.5% yesterday, and is down another 0.3% this morning. Blackstone (NYSE: BX) fell 5.6% yesterday but is up 0.4% today. American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE: AMH), the country’s second biggest REIT buying single family homes, fell 4.3% yesterday and is down another 1.6% today.
© Feverpitched / iStock via Getty Images