Thursday, September 17, 2026 Opening bell

Fed hikes rates, futures bounce after selloff

Overnight

The Dow closed down 1.21% at 51,461.90 on Wednesday after the Fed raised rates, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.45% to 7,551.81 and the Nasdaq Composite finished almost flat at 25,978.43. Asia was mixed overnight, with the Nikkei 225 up 213 points to 64,136 and the Hang Seng down 109 points to 24,604, and Europe opened higher, the DAX at 25,667 and the FTSE 100 at 10,709. US futures have turned positive this morning, with S&P 500 futures up 0.8%, while the 10 year Treasury yield, the rate the government pays to borrow for a decade, eased to 4.98%.

What to watch

The Bank of England held its key rate at 3.75% in a 6 to 3 split vote, with UK inflation at a five month high of 3.1%, a reminder that other central banks are caught in the same squeeze between rising prices and slowing growth. This morning's US releases include weekly jobless claims, the earliest read on how many people are losing work, plus housing starts, building permits and the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index, with pending home sales still to come at 10am Eastern. The day after a rate hike, those numbers carry extra weight, because they are the first evidence of whether the economy is cooling the way the Fed wants it to.