5 things to know before the stock market opens Wednesday, December 14

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

The Federal Reserve is expected to raise its key interest rate by half a percentage point late Wednesday. The market has accepted that. Instead, investors will be keeping a close eye on the Fed’s updated rate projections and listening closely to what Chairman Jerome Powell said in his post-rate press conference. Economists expect the Fed to stay firm against inflation, even after two consecutive months of cooling. Consumer price index. Shares have rallied for two consecutive sessions. That could be put to the test on Wednesday, depending on how tough the Fed is. Read live market updates here.

A judge in the Bahamas on Tuesday said disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried must incarcerated without bail. Bankman-Fried faces multiple federal fraud and conspiracy charges in the United States, where regulators have also accused him of committing a major fraud. His lawyers are said to have plans to fight extradition. Meanwhile, in Washington, FTX’s new CEO, liquidation specialist John J. Ray, tell legislators on what led to the crypto company’s downfall. “This is really just old-fashioned embezzlement. This is just taking money from customers and using it for your own purposes. Not sophisticated at all,” he said.

It looks like that at the moment. Congressional leaders said on Tuesday they had an agreement has been reached on a spending package that will keep the government open. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced the agreement with the House Appropriations Chairman, Representative Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and the Senate Budget Vice President. Richard Shelby Institute, R-Ala. “If all goes well, we should be able to complete the bus allocation package by December 23,” Shelby said in a statement. Lawmakers did not disclose the details of the agreement.

Executives at Google’s parent company Alphabet know about hype around OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a new artificial intelligence chatbot is attracting social media users with its ability to create basic, concise essays. But Google is in no hurry to offer similar products. Company executives would rather continue to refine what they’re developing than risk Google’s reputation, according to New report from CNBC’s Jennifer Elias. “We absolutely want to put these things into actual products and into things that stand out more with language modeling instead of under the hood, which is where we’ve used them so far,” said Jeff Dean , the leader of Google’s AI division, told employees at a recent town hall. “But, it’s extremely important that we get it right.”

Russia has launched a new wave of drone strikes on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, continuing to rely on Iranian-made weapons to wreak havoc on the former Soviet state’s civilian population and infrastructure. . Meanwhile, NBC News reported that the United States was preparing to send one of its Patriot missile systems to Ukraine. This system will help Ukraine repel Russian missile attacks. The Pentagon is expected to announce the move as soon as this week. Read live war updates here.

— Carmen Reinicke, Patti Domm, Rohan Goswami, Brian Schwartz, Jennifer Elias and Holly Ellyatt of CNBC contributed to this report.

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