The Fed's latest interest-rate cut wasn't a surprise, but it still had lots of intrigue

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Lovers of the beautiful game, beware! Buying a ticket for this summer's World Cup in the US on a secondary platform doesn't guarantee you actually bought a ticket for this summer's World Cup. Confused? BI's Emily Stewart breaks down the "ghost ticket" phenomenon.

In today's newsletter, ABC suspends Jimmy Kimmel's show "indefinitely" over his Charlie Kirk comments — Hollywood and Trump react.

But first, our big story: an interest-rate cut, the potential for more, and one whacky-looking dot plot.

What's on deck:

Markets: The IPO window opening hasn't been great for everyone.

Tech: Inside the chaotic layoffs at Elon Musk's xAI.

Business: ABC pulls the plug on Jimmy Kimmel over Charlie Kirk comments.

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The big story

An uninspiring cut

An interest-rate cut and signs of more to come still weren't enough to get the market moving.

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 25 basis points, as expected, writes BI's Allie Kelly. There were also clear signs the first rate cut of the year wouldn't be the last, thanks largely to a weakening labor market.

"Over the course of this year, we've kept our policy at a restrictive level. And we were able to do that because the labor market was in a strong position with strong job creation," Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday. "I can no longer say that."

Still, all that positive news about rate cuts wasn't enough to get investors excited. Major indices remained mostly flat or dipped during Powell's speech. At market close, the S&P 500 was flat while the Nasdaq Composite finished slightly down. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.57%.

The market's unenthusiastic response could be because the cut was highly telegraphed, turning it into a "Sell the News" event, writes BI's Jennifer Sor.

But that's not to say things won't kick off tomorrow.

"Everyone gets a chance to sort of sleep on it and say, 'how much of this did we expect? How much of this is at a consensus? And how much of this has been priced in?'" Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth, told Jennifer.

Still, the Fed's announcement had its share of fireworks.

Stephen Miran, the newest Fed official, didn't waste any time settling into the role.

Miran, a loyalist of President Donald Trump, was the lone dissenting voice in the Fed's decision, preferring a jumbo cut of 50 basis points. However, Powell threw cold water on the idea that a bigger cut was ever a reality, saying during his press conference that it didn't have wide support in the meetings.

The all-important dot plot — a chart compiling Fed officials' year-end projections for interest rates — was also a bit spicy.

Big picture, the median projection showed two additional cuts before the end of the year, a slight uptick from June's dot plot.

However, the breadth of projections was something, to say the least. Fed officials' year-end policy rate forecasts ranged from raising rates a quarter point to dropping them by 125 basis points. Allie's got a breakdown on all the wackiness in the Fed's new dot plot.

"That's a remarkably wide range of opinion about decisions that are not far in the future," Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank, wrote in a note.

3 things in markets

1. "Pharma bro" is betting against a beloved meme stock. Martin Shkreli, convicted securities fraudster turned stock trader, recently shared his short position on Opendoor. Shkreli's stance doesn't faze Eric Jackson — whose bullish Opendoor thesis caused the stock to soar — but it's riling up some retail investors online.

2. Eleven stocks that are hot on the DL. Industrial stocks are on a tear, with the sector up 15% year-to-date. UBS shared 11 buy-rated names for investors to put on their radars, including Alaska Air Group and Quanta Services.

3. StubHub's (not so) hot debut. The company finally debuted its widely anticipated IPO, only for its stock to drop 6%. The moment might've been overshadowed by the Federal Reserve's long-awaited rate cut decision, but its failure to generate momentum could also be a sign of investors' waning enthusiasm.

3 things in tech

1. Mark Zuckerberg unveils Meta's next wave of AI wearables. Zuckerberg has figured out a way to get a phone on your face — by shrinking it down and cramming it into a pair of glasses, BI's Peter Kafka writes. Alongside them: a neural wristband that can detect muscle motions and a new VR upgrade for the Quest headset. Read the five biggest takeaways.

2. XAI told workers that layoffs were over. Then came more layoffs. In the midst of mass firings and a leadership exodus, new data annotation team leader Diego Pasini told workers in an all-hands meeting that xAI was giving them a 10% raise and increasing the team by 10 times its current size. Pasini also reassured employees that xAI wouldn't make any further job cuts, but more than a hundred employees were let go a few hours later, multiple workers said.

3. The healthcare girlies are beefing. Sequoia-backed startup OpenEvidence and $13 billion Domixity are slinging lawsuits in the race to build "ChatGPT for doctors." They're locked in an intense legal battle that could set new precedents for trade secret disputes in the age of AI.

3 things in business

1. ABC suspends Jimmy Kimmel's show "indefinitely." ABC said it pulled Kimmel off the air over his comments about Charlie Kirk's killing. Hollywood is reacting, including remarks from Ben Stiller, Wanda Sykes, and Jean Smart. President Donald Trump celebrated the move and urged NBC to cancel its late-night hosts. You can read what Kimmel said here.

2. Inside McDonald's adventures in greenwashing. McDonald's went from paper to plastic to paper again, spending millions on PR, recycling workarounds, and green pledges. Decades later, it has traded one single-use problem for another.

3. Ben & Jerry's, minus Jerry. The ice cream brand's cofounder, Jerry Greenfield, is leaving the company after 47 years. Greenfield criticized parent company Unilever on the way out, saying it had silenced Ben & Jerry's activism on social and political issues.

In other news

• 'Pay attention': Spirit pilots got a slap on the wrist after flying too close to Air Force One while Trump was on board.
• These salacious, bite-sized soaps have become a $1.3 billion business in the US.
• Tesla dodges trial and settles lawsuit over a deadly Autopilot crash.
• Americans are sprinting to refinance their mortgages as rates fall.
• The 6 most exciting vibe coding startups at Y Combinator's Demo Day for its summer cohort.
• Elizabeth Warren says there's a hidden reason why Trump wants to end companies' quarterly earnings requirement.

What's happening today

• FedEx reports earnings.

Dan DeFrancesco, deputy executive editor and anchor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Akin Oyedele, deputy editor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in New York. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York.

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