Finance Evening | Fed Hikes for First Time in Three Years; Stocks and Bonds Rally as Nvidia Eyes Doubled Chip Sales

📊 Today's North American Markets

Source: Compiled from reports by CBS News, CNBC, NBC News, TechCrunch, Fox Business, 24/7 Wall St., USA Today and Cailianshe.

1️⃣ Fed Hikes Rates for the First Time in Three Years as Warsh Turns Hawkish

Source: CBS News

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday for the first time in three years, and Chairman Kevin Warsh then delivered a decidedly hawkish message that opened the door to further hikes as the central bank tries to snuff out stubbornly high inflation.

Wednesday's quarter-point increase will make credit cards and other loans incrementally more expensive. What unsettled investors was the gap between the Fed's economic forecasts and Warsh's remarks: policymakers projected one more hike in 2026 and none in 2027, while Warsh signaled a willingness to raise rates further if needed.

“The plain fact is that inflation is too high, and has been for too long,” Warsh said at a press conference. Driven largely by the Iran war's impact on oil, U.S. CPI inflation rose from 2.4% in January to a three-year high of 4.2% in May, easing to 3.4% in August — still far above the Fed's 2% target. Crude oil has topped $100 a barrel, and diesel hit a record $6.40 a gallon on Thursday, up 73% from a year ago. President Trump posted that rates should be “1% or less.”

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2️⃣ Treasury Yields Fall as Markets Digest the Hike Path

Source: CNBC

Treasury yields slid on Thursday, a day after the Fed raised rates for the first time in three years. The benchmark 10-year yield fell more than 7 basis points to 4.93%, the 30-year dropped more than 6 basis points to 5.282%, and the 2-year slipped more than 5 basis points to 4.67%.

The Fed lifted its benchmark rate by 25 basis points to a target range of 3.75%-4% on Wednesday, its first increase since July 2023. The dot plot showed 16 of 18 officials expect another hike this year, with four seeing two more as possible.

The day's economic data was mixed: jobless claims for the week ended Sept. 12 came in at 196,000, below the 207,000 economists expected, while August housing starts fell short of forecasts.

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3️⃣ Stocks and Bonds Rally as Oil Falls for a Second Day

Source: NBC News

U.S. stocks closed sharply higher Thursday after the Fed's rate hike. The S&P 500 rose 1.1%, the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.7%, the Dow added 316 points (0.6%) and the Russell 2000 gained 0.5%. Nine of the S&P 500's 11 sectors finished higher, led by tech names including Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, Intel and AMD.

Bonds also rallied, pushing yields lower, while oil fell for a second straight day. U.S. crude briefly dipped below $100 a barrel for the first time since Friday before closing down 0.5% at $101.91; Brent fell 0.9% to $104.82.

According to AAA, the national average gasoline price rose another 7 cents to $4.43 a gallon, and diesel added 8 cents to $6.39. Reports that President Trump will discuss the Iran war with Gulf leaders at the UN General Assembly next week, plus Saudi Arabia restoring some pipeline capacity, were cited for oil's slide. Still, Fed officials warned another hike may be needed before year-end.

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4️⃣ Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: Chip Sales Will Double Next Year

Source: Cailianshe (via Sina Finance)

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said on Thursday that the company's chip sales next year will be double this year's, as AI spreads further into healthcare, manufacturing, financial services and other industries. Nvidia shares rose more than 2.5% during the U.S. session.

It is the latest in a string of strong growth projections. Nvidia recently said it expects revenue to grow 70% in the fiscal year ending January 2028, to roughly $673 billion — a forecast that prompted analysts to sharply raise expectations.

Speaking at a summit in Scotland, Huang said: “The bottleneck is not demand; it is Nvidia's ability to produce the chips.” Its best-known products are data-center GPUs, including the Blackwell and Rubin lines; last fall he said Nvidia had shipped 6 million Blackwell GPUs in four quarters. The company also supplies the chip for Nintendo's Switch 2 console.

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5️⃣ Huawei Moves Up Launch of New AI Chip to Take On Nvidia

Source: TechCrunch

Huawei said Thursday at its Huawei Connect conference that it is moving up the launch of its next-generation Ascend 960DT AI chip to the first quarter of 2027 as it races to challenge Nvidia. A Huawei spokesperson told TechCrunch the company had previously planned to launch the chip in Q3 2027.

David Wang, Huawei's rotating and acting chairman, announced the updated timeline. The move comes just about a week before U.S. President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet in Washington on Sept. 24.

Huawei is trying to link hundreds of thousands — eventually millions — of AI chips into one giant computer. Analyst Rui Ma noted that Huawei had previously said its Atlas 960 SuperPoD would scale to 15,488 Ascend 960 chips, while this week's announcement referred to a system with 4,096.

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6️⃣ U.S. Chip Industry Faces a 157,000-Worker Shortage

Source: CNBC

A new report from McKinsey and the SEMI Foundation finds the U.S. could face a shortage of up to 157,000 semiconductor workers by 2030. “I'm concerned. We just don't see that there's enough technical people in the pipeline,” Jon Taylor, executive vice president of Samsung's semiconductor division in Austin, Texas, told CNBC.

Only 3% of U.S. graduates who take engineering roles enter the semiconductor industry each year, and 73% of chip employers report significant difficulty filling engineering roles. Talent is a key bottleneck as the U.S. undergoes its fastest chip manufacturing buildout ever. Samsung will start production at two new fabs in Taylor, Texas — part of a $35 billion buildout expected to create about 3,500 jobs.

SEMI Foundation data shows U.S. chip salaries typically range from $127,000 to $187,000, with senior roles exceeding $238,000. Micron is building America's first advanced memory fab in Boise, Idaho, with another under construction in Clay, New York, while SK Hynix is building its first U.S. facility at Purdue Research Park in Indiana.

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7️⃣ Rising Fuel Costs Force Major U.S. Airlines to Cut Flights

Source: Fox Business

Executives from American, United and Southwest said Wednesday that higher jet fuel prices are forcing carriers to adjust capacity and closely watch schedules. The global average jet fuel price rose 6.1% week over week to $181.46 a barrel last week, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

American Airlines CFO Devon May said at a Morgan Stanley conference that fourth-quarter jet fuel prices are running about $1 a gallon above the airline's July projection, adding roughly $1 billion to its fuel bill. United CFO Michael Leskinen said some flights planned for December will no longer operate because of higher fuel prices.

Southwest CFO Tom Doxey said the carrier has already pared back about half of the modest year-over-year capacity growth it planned at the start of 2026; if fuel stays higher for longer, trimming capacity would be the natural response. He added that stronger-than-expected fall bookings helped offset the higher fuel costs.

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8️⃣ Record Diesel Prices Threaten to Ripple Through the Economy

Source: CNBC

Diesel hit an all-time high of $6.31 a gallon on Wednesday. Experts note that diesel is the economy's single most universal tangible input; the pain starts in transportation — trucking and rail companies now — and will eventually push up prices on virtually everything.

The chief commercial officer for Norfolk Southern noted at a Morgan Stanley conference that diesel in California was already $8. Costco recently limited how much gas its members can buy. Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, said home heating oil customers could pay as much as 31% more this winter if prices stay at current levels.

J.B. Hunt CFO Brad Delco said the trucking giant has seen “some of the most radical and abnormal swings” in fuel prices ever and record-high diesel, causing at least a $10 million headwind, and warned of lower earnings to come.

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9️⃣ Five High-Yield Dividend Stocks Boomers Favor — and None Are Yield Traps

Source: 24/7 Wall St.

For income-seeking American Boomers, a double-digit dividend yield can signal a collapsing business as often as a generous payout — the so-called yield trap. 24/7 Wall St. screened its high-yield database and found five names that avoid that risk.

Ares Capital (ARCC), a high-yielding business development company, offers a 9.64% dividend yield and is rated Buy by eight analysts, with Truist setting a $21 target. Energy Transfer (ET), one of North America's largest midstream energy companies, pays a 6.27% distribution yield and carries a J.P. Morgan Overweight rating with a $25 target.

Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) pays a 5.60% distribution, with a debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 3.1x to 3.4x, and has a UBS Buy rating with a $45 target. Verizon (VZ) trades at 9.13 times estimated 2026 earnings and pays a 5.52% dividend; management has raised the payout for 20 straight years and expects at least $21.5 billion in free cash flow this year.

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🔟 National Cheeseburger Day Brings Deals at McDonald's, Burger King and More

Source: USA Today

Friday, Sept. 18, is National Cheeseburger Day in the U.S., and fast-food chains are rolling out deals. McDonald's MyMcDonald's Rewards members can get a free double cheeseburger on Friday with a minimum $1 purchase, while Wendy's Rewards members can add a Dave's Single cheeseburger for $1.99 with any purchase.

Carl's Jr. Rewards members can get any burger half price with the purchase of a Hand-Scooped Ice-Cream Shake on Sept. 17-18; Hardee's My Rewards members get a buy-one-get-one Famous Star cheeseburger on Friday; and Five Guys offers a buy-one-get-one deal through Sept. 18 with the code BOGOBURGER at checkout.

According to Circana, Americans ate about 20 cheeseburgers each from foodservice establishments in the 12 months ending July 2026 — roughly 6.9 billion nationwide.

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