Good morning and welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving markets right now.
Bank of America is calling time on the Fed's patience. Analysts there now forecast three quarter-point rate hikes this year, which would push the benchmark rate back up to four and a quarter to four and a half percent. BofA argues the Fed has tolerated above-target inflation for five years through successive shocks, and that tolerance is finished.
Shifting to equities, Alphabet is absorbing a brutal session after two prominent AI researchers, including a Nobel laureate, announced departures for rival labs. The market read that as a talent exodus signal, and investors responded by erasing roughly two hundred sixty-nine billion dollars in market capitalization. In the AI arms race, losing the people is losing the war.
Meanwhile, Lucid Motors is cutting eighteen percent of its workforce and eliminating the Chief Operating Officer role entirely, with no plans to fill it. The company says it's trimming a production shift to align output with anticipated demand. After a year and a half of executive turnover, the restructuring raises real questions about whether Lucid can close the gap between ambition and actual volume.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
