Coffee With Greta: After The Fed

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DJIA Futures: -42 (-0.1%)

SPX Futures: -14 (-0.3%)

NASDAQ Futures: -77 (-0.5%)

Good morning friends!

Futures are lower as traders digest Wednesday’s Fed decision and new economic data.

Let’s get right to it!

Two More Rate Hikes

The Federal Reserve skipped a rate hike as expected on Wednesday but surprised traders with a more hawkish summary of economic projections.

The Federal Open Market Committee voted to keep rates unchanged at the current range of 5% to 5.25%.

Chairman Jerome Powell said the bank would use the next six weeks to “take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy.”

The Fed’s updated dot plot showed a terminal rate of 5.6% in 2023 which indicates two more 25bps rate hikes.

CME Group’s FedWatch Tool shows over 69% of traders betting on a rate hike at the July meeting

U.S. retail sales rose unexpectedly in May.

The Commerce Department reported retail sales jumped 0.3% to $686.6 billion.

That beat expectations for sales to fall 0.2%.

Sales at car dealers rose 1.4% while sales at building material stores jumped 2.2%.

Gas stations saw the largest decrease, with sales falling 2.6%.

Retail sales excluding autos rose 0.1%, as expected.

Weekly jobless claims rose unexpectedly last week.

The Labor Department reported 262,000 Americans filed initial claims for unemployment benefits.

That was up by 1,000 from the previous week and higher than 250,000 expected.

Continuing claims also rose by 18,000 to 1.78 million in the week ending June 3.

Two key manufacturing indexes show mixed activity across the country.

The Empire State manufacturing index rose sharply this month to 6.6 from -13.8% in May.

That beat economists’ expectations for the index to fall to -15.

But the Philly Fed Manufacturing index fell further to -13.8 from -10.4 in May.

That was in line with estimates.

Mediterranean restaurant chain Cava priced its initial public offering at $22 per share on Wednesday. That was higher than the previously stated range of $19 to $20 per share. The company sold 14.4 million shares, raising $318 million. The IPO pricing values Cava at $2.45 billion, with more than 111 million shares outstanding. The stock is expected to debut today and trade under the ticker symbol CAVA.