5 things to know before the stock market opens on Wednesday, February 1

Here are the most important news items investors need to start their trading day:

The Federal Reserve is set up to its latest rate hike announcement on Wednesday afternoon. Markets are expecting a quarter point gain, lower than a few times in the past. However, as CNBC’s Patti Domm writes, market experts expect Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to continue to use a hawkish tone as he describes the Fed’s way forward in the fight against inflation. Wednesday’s hike will put the interest rate range at 4.50% to 4.75%, close to the Fed’s estimated end point of 5% to 5.25%. The announcement is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET and Powell will speak at 2:30.

Last month will be a tough move to follow. The S&P 500 posted its best January since 2019, while the Nasdaq recorded its best January in 22 years. All three major indexes ended higher on Tuesday, putting an exclamation point on the month as the bulls sought to build momentum after last year’s slumps. And while investors will be mulling over what the Fed has to say on Wednesday, they’ll have more to think about as earnings season approaches. Facebook parents meta reports after the bell Wednesday and Thursday will be an earnings season, with Apple, Amazon, Starbucks and others due to report. Read Live market updates.

It’s “code red” at Google as the search giant races to compete with the noisy artificially intelligent chatbot ChatGPT. Google’s “Atlas” project is testing a chatbot called “Bard Apprentice,” aims to give complex answers to questions in the same way that ChatGPT does. Employees are also testing whether it can be integrated into the search engine. The news, reported by CNBC’s Jennifer Elias, comes after employees pressured executives in December over how the parent company Alphabet will respond to the sudden popularity of ChatGPT. At the time, CEO Sundar Pichai and Google AI Chief Jeff Dean hinted that the company can release similar products in the year 2023.

take a shot is stuck in a rut. The social media company posted for the third time in a row Disappointing quarterly earnings report Third, cause stocks to drop double digits during after-hours trading. Things don’t look like things will settle down anytime soon after companies slash their digital advertising budgets. In a letter to investors, Snap said it expects revenue to decline in the current quarter by 2% to 10% from the same period last year. Analysts had expected a small increase in revenue. “In terms of monetization, we anticipate that the operating environment will remain challenging, as we expect the difficulties we have faced over the past year to persist into the future,” the company said. throughout Q1”.

We’ve heard a lot about the tiny radioactive capsule – we’re talking here measuring 6mm x 8mm – falling out of a truck deep in a remote part of Australia. Fortunately, the authorities said it was found after a nearly week-long search about 1,100 kilometers north of Perth. This object is part of the measuring device, which can cause serious radiation burns and illness to anyone who comes in contact with it. Indeed, authorities have asked people to stay about 3 meters away from the device if they spot it. (Then again, how can you spot such a tiny thing from that distance?) Mining company Rio Tinto apologized earlier this week for the problem.

— Patti Domm, Carmen Reinicke, Jennifer Elias, Jonathan Vanian and Jenni Reid of CNBC contributed to this report.

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