BREAKING: Late Wednesday, an American Airlines jet collided in the air with a helicopter in Washington DC above the Potomac River. American Airlines stock fell sharply in overnight trading. This is a developing story.

This morning, we’re covering how a slate of Big Tech earnings stole attention from the Fed, takeaways from key earnings calls, and where high borrowing costs hit hardest. First time reading? Join 190,000 self-directed investors gaining an edge every morning. Sign up here. 

Tech’s big earnings

The Fed is used to steering markets on its big day, but this time Big Tech relegated policymakers to an afterthought.

The Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate in the 4.25%-4.5% range as expected Wednesday, and the S&P 500 stayed flat from the time the decision came out through the end of the trading session.

Then earnings took over. 

Tesla, Meta and Microsoft all reported quarterly results after the closing bell, and batches of stocks swung in response.

It marked a rare moment from recent history when individual stocks upstaged monetary policy.

Here are the results from each of the three names: 

Tesla: 

• Revenue: $25.71 billion, below $27.21 billion expected

• Earnings per share: $0.73, below $0.75 expected

• Stock move: +4.31% after hours 

• Takeaway: Tesla disappointed on paper as automotive revenue declined 8% from a year ago, yet the stock popped as Elon Musk said Optimus and full self-driving will eventually make Tesla more valuable than the next five biggest companies in the world combined.

Meta: 

• Revenue: $48.39 billion, above $47.04 billion expected

• Earnings per share: $8.02, above $6.77 expected

• Stock move: +2.51% after hours

• Takeaway: Meta posted record revenue, bolstered its ad business with AI, increased sales by 21%, and Mark Zuckerberg said he’s optimistic for the new Trump administration. Oh, and Meta’s metaverse division continues to bleed billions of dollars. 

Microsoft: 

• Revenue: $69.6 billion, above $68.8 billion expected

• Earnings per share: $3.23, above $3.13 expected

• Stock move: -4.65% after hours

• Takeaway: Microsoft fell short on its cloud business, announced it plans to spend $80 billion in fiscal 2025 on AI, and cited constraints on data center supply that’s held it back from meeting booming demand from AI companies. 

Of course, none of the above occurred in a vacuum.

Musk’s upbeat comments on full self-driving sent shares of Uber and Lyft lower, as well as those for the autonomous driving company, Pony AI. Fellow electric-car makers Rivian and Lucid climbed on his good word. 

Meta’s banner results helped give Alphabet a boost, while Microsoft’s weaker guidance on its cloud business sent jitters through Salesforce, Snowflake and Workday. 

It’s worth noting that China’s DeepSeek went largely unaddressed.

Still, to Scott Helfstein, Global X’s head of investment strategy, Big Tech giants don’t need to sweat at this point. 

"There is little reason to believe that the release of DeepSeek will alter forward guidance from the mega-cap companies in any meaningful way,” Helfstein said, noting that the incumbents still maintain various competitive moats.

“Microsoft and Meta are probably not quaking in their boots over DeepSeek.”

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Elsewhere:

💰️ Some Nvidia traders bought the dip amid the DeepSeek sell-off. Individual investors on Monday bought a record $562 million in Nvidia stock, Vanda Research data shows. The platform Interactive Brokers saw net-buying activity for each of the 25 most-traded stocks, including plenty of popular tech names, which suggests the AI trade hasn’t exactly lost favor among retail. (WSJ)

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🏦 High interest rates could still bring more pain ahead. Borrowers and bondholders have had to endure high rates, with fixed-income investors seeing the worst returns in nearly 90 years. Housing, too, has frozen over. Then there’s the US Treasury — at current interest rates, its interest tab is the fastest-growing part of its budget, outpacing defense spending. (Barron’s)

Rapid-fire:

• Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Trump after it suspended his social accounts in 2021 (AP)

• Trump Media, the parent company to Truth Social, announced a $250 million investment into cryptocurrency and said it plans to launch a finance arm, TruthFi (WSJ)

• IBM stock soared 9% in overnight trading after Q4 crushing earnings (Yahoo Finance)

• CME Group will launch futures contracts for bitcoin on Friday (PR Newswire)

• Trump’s commerce chief nominee Howard Lutnick said he has advised the president to impose across-the-board tariffs country-by-country (Reuters)

• Elon Musk declined a dinner with the head of Norway’s $1.7 trillion oil fund who voted against the Tesla chief’s pay package (Business Insider)

• There’s a good shot countries around the world are already buying bitcoin without disclosing it (Pomp Letter)

• Four of the top 10 cities with Americans have the most disposable income are in Texas (CNBC)

Traders see 27% odds the Fed cuts rates twice in 2025, down from 32% a month ago, according to Kalshi, the biggest US prediction market:

Last thing: