Dow Jones Industrial Average flattens ahead of Fed

• The Dow Jones is trading flat through Wednesday as markets await Powell.
• The Fed is widely expected to stand pat on interest rates for this meeting.
• Despite the forecast of no rate moves, markets will be watching the FOMC closely.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is treading water on Wednesday, awaiting Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) latest rate call, which is already widely expected to be no moves on rate cuts. A hefty earnings season is further constraining traders' desire to make any heavy moves, with Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Facebook (FB), and Tesla (TSLA) slated to publish their latest earnings reports during the midweek.

The FOMC's latest rate call is due at 1400 EST, or 1900 GMT, with Fed Chair Powell's press conference slated to start half an hour later. The Fed's steady rate call is a foregone conclusion, but the thing drawing market attention will be how Fed Chair Powell addresses the friction between United States (US) President Donald Trump and the Federal Reserve. President Trump has set the White House on a collision course with the US central bank, as Donald Trump's history as a borrower has led him to believe that arbitrarily lower interest rates are the panacea to federal funding woes that his administration is facing. 

President Trump stated his intention to "demand" lower interest rates from Powell and the Fed. However, the US president is typically ill-suited to make that particular demand when the rule of law and the Fed's Congressionally appointed independence are factors. Investors tend to prefer the rule of law, and any particularly egregious moves by the split-term President to try to upend that will likely make waves among markets.

Dow Jones news

Most of the Dow Jones is holding in tepid territory ahead of the Fed's latest rate call. The equity index is roughly split down the middle between losers and winners, though Nvidia (NVDA) is continuing its latest trend of falling to the bottom. Nvidia is down another 4.6% on Wednesday, falling below $123 per share as the chip-punching silicon merchant continues to take a pummeling as China's open-source AI megamodel, DeepSeek, threatens US venture-capital-fueled AI infrastructure dominance.

Dow Jones price forecast

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is drying out just south of record highs above 45,000, with intraday price action testing the waters near 44,800. A topside break will see the Dow Jones chalking in fresh all-time peak bids, while a bearish turnaround will mark the major equity index's first 'lower high' pattern since mid-2024.

Dow Jones daily chart