Good Evening. As Wall Street recovered from a three-week long sell-off across global markets, U.S. equities surged Wednesday.
The Dow Jones gained 1.40%, while the S&P 500 increased 1.83%. The Nasdaq Composite was the market leader, rising 2.14% to record its largest gain in three weeks and end a seven-day losing streak.
GAMESTOP IS MAKING MOVES
As the retailer for video games continues to concentrate on its shift into the sale of digital assets, GameStop (GME) reported its sixth straight quarterly loss on Wednesday, along with dismal revenue increases.
- Earnings Per Share: ($0.35) vs. ($0.38) expected
- Revenue: $1.136 Billion vs. $1.266 Billion expected
However… A new commercial relationship between GameStop and FTX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency and derivative exchanges, was also announced. This agreement would “bring more GameStop customers to FTX’s community and its marketplaces for digital assets.”
Why are they taking this approach? In order to reduce the amount of money needed to develop its non-fungible tokens, GameStop is attempting to move away from relying on brick-and-mortar sales in favor of a more significant and dynamic online presence. This comes after the company partnered with the Australian blockchain startup ImmutableX earlier this year.
Following the earnings report’s release, GameStop shares rose 11.4% in after-hours trading, indicating a Thursday opening bell price of $26.78. Despite the increase, the stock’s one-month fall would still be about 38.3%.
DO WHATEVER IT TAKES
In remarks that signaled a continuance of the central bank’s aggressive interest rate rises, Federal Reserve officials warned that they are still not sure that the worst of the United States inflation panic has passed.
In a speech at a banking conference, Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard echoed previous statements by officials from other central banks to do “whatever it takes” to safeguard their economies: “we are in this for as long as it takes to get inflation down.”
The remedy: A sharp increase in interest rates is designed to choke off spending, slow the economy, and bring the demand for goods and services closer to the economy’s capacity to produce or import them. The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates by a total of 2.25% over the course of its last four policy sessions. Going forward The Fed anticipates raising them by an additional 50 or 75 basis points from September 20-21.
Looking forward… While Brainard noted that the risks to growth and jobs may eventually weigh more heavily on the Fed’s deliberations, she said the lesson from previous bouts of inflation was clear: don’t pull back on rate increases too soon.