Even if the Fed freezes interest rates, it's not enough... Microsoft rises after-hours on strong earnings

Summary

Curator Park Myung-suk covers a brutal market day where the Fed holding rates was interpreted as a mistake, sending bond yields and volatility soaring. He reviews after-hours earnings: Microsoft rose on solid results, Meta plunged on a miss and high capex, while software names like Fortinet surged and consumer stocks Starbucks and Chipotle rallied. The theme of a forgiving software sector versus a harshly judged AI hardware sector emerges, along with a call for investor resilience amid extreme stress.

• Federal Reserve held rates but the market saw it as dovish error, with the 30-year Treasury yield hitting 5.2% for the first time since 2007.
• Equity markets saw massive intraday swings with three $3 trillion market-cap moves, eventually closing lower.
• After-hours: Microsoft up ~2% on clean beat; Meta down 9.5% on EPS miss and heavy capex; Qualcomm and ARM declined, while Lam Research and Fortinet jumped.
• A clear divergence was highlighted: AI hardware faces punishingly high bar, while software names like Fortinet only need stable earnings to rally.
• Consumer defensive plays Starbucks and Chipotle both rose about 5% after strong, controversy-free reports.
• Park Myung-suk described the market as relentlessly beating down participants and urged viewers not to give up, emphasizing resilience.
• Truist analysts relayed a view that the semiconductor sell-off is a buying opportunity in Nvidia and AMD, but the curator did not endorse the call.