Welcome to Markets Desk, here's what's moving markets this afternoon.
Stocks are finishing the session in split fashion following the Federal Reserve's decision to hold rates steady in what marks Jerome Powell's final meeting as chair. The S&P five hundred is off about a third of a percent, the Dow down nearly eight tenths, while the Nasdaq is clinging to a slim gain. Markets appear to be digesting a policy hold with one eye already on who sits in that chair next.
Across the Atlantic, Volkswagen is reporting a fourteen percent drop in first-quarter profit, a result that underscores just how much pressure Europe's automakers are absorbing right now. Tariffs on one side and intensifying Chinese competition on the other are squeezing margins across the sector, and VW is hardly alone in that fight among the major OEMs.
Meanwhile in commodities, sugar prices are surging to multi-week highs in both New York and London trading, with New York's benchmark contract up more than four percent on the session. The driver here is strength in gasoline prices, which ties into the ethanol demand picture in Brazil, the world's largest sugar producer, and that linkage is pulling the soft commodity sharply higher.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
