Happy Wednesday, unless you were holding basically anything. The Fed held rates as expected, Jerome Powell stepped to the podium and told the market inflation progress was slower than hoped, and suddenly the message kicked in.

The sell off swept the indexes. Not even energy escaped, finishing the day's worst-performing group alongside consumer staples, which dropped -2.4%. Bitcoin fell -4% to $71k as risk appetite evaporated the moment Powell started talking. The dot plot technically still shows around one-two cuts this year, but fed funds futures are now pricing no realistic shot at a move until December.

The PPI report that landed before the open didn't help. Producer prices came in hot for February, front-running Powell's message and giving the market two reasons to sell before lunch. Wholesale prices jumped twice as much as expected. Oil hit $109 a barrel before pulling back. Powell said near-term inflation expectations have already risen and that the Iran war will push overall inflation higher in the short term.

Micron reported a beat after the bell tonight, which gives the market a chance to find something to feel good about before Thursday's open. 👀

The memory sector's biggest earnings test of the year turned into a blowout that even the most hardened bears could not explain away, with $MU ( ▲ 0.01% ) reporting Wednesday after the close and demolishing every number Wall Street had put on the board.

The RIP: $12.2 EPS vs. $9 estimate; revenue $23.86B vs. $19.7B expected, up +138% year over year; Q3 guidance came in well above the +142% growth consensus analysts were modeling.

"The explosion in AI training and inferencing and the broader push into agentic AI are driving a shortage of memory supplies," the company said, as Micron confirmed it has discontinued its consumer Crucial memory line entirely to focus on high-bandwidth memory for data centers.

The beat was not a rounding error. A $33.5B Q3 guide against a $24.29B consensus is not a beat, it is a different trajectory, driven by HBM chips shipping into Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform and a global memory shortage. Micron also approved a +30% increase to its quarterly dividend. The stock slipped -2% after hours, which says more about how much was already priced in than it does about the quarter. 🧠

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The drone autonomy software company priced at $5 a share on Tuesday, raised $15M, and promptly went completely unhinged, with $SWMR ( ▲ 77.42% ) surging as much as +600% on its Nasdaq debut before settling around on Wednesday as retail traders kept piling in for a second straight session.

Swarmer's AI software enables one operator to control up to 690 drones simultaneously, and the company has already flown more than 100,000 combat missions, with CEO Alex Fink noting that small drones now account for more than 70% of all casualties on both sides of the battlefield in Ukraine.

"Ukraine wants to launch millions of drones, but it doesn't have millions of pilots," Alex Fink, CEO, said on Schwab Network during the debut. 🚁

The Federal Reserve kept rates unchanged at 3.5% to 3.75% on Wednesday as expected, but Jerome Powell's press conference delivered the message markets were quietly dreading, with $NVDA and the broader tape selling off as the chair acknowledged inflation progress is slower than hoped.

"The forecast is that we will be making progress on inflation, not as much as we had hoped, but some progress," Powell said. "If we don't see that progress, then you won't see the rate cut."

Powell also said he would stay with the Fed until after the DOJ investigation into his work there is over. Right now, the nomination for his replacement, Steven Miran, is up for confirmation vote in the Senate, but a bipartisan group of lawmakers have pledged to hold his application until the DOJ stops investigating Powell.

The dot plot technically still shows two cuts this year, which B. Riley's Art Hogan called "slightly less hawkish than anticipated," and Goldman Sachs Asset Management said there is still room for two normalization cuts depending on the conflict's duration. The fine print is less reassuring. The inflation forecast was revised up to 2.7% from 2.4%. Powell explicitly said the Iran war will push up near-term inflation, and Fed funds futures now price no realistic shot at a cut until December.

Powell also noted that near-term inflation expectations have already risen, likely reflecting oil's surge. It may be one of the last things he says as chair, with his term ending in May and the Warsh succession still gridlocked in the Senate. The Fed's message Wednesday was simple: the war changed the math, and until it ends, monetary policy is not going anywhere. 🏛️

The department store operator cleared Wall Street's Q4 bar and showed its turnaround strategy is gaining traction on Wednesday, with $M ( ▲ 4.73% ) closing higher as investors weighed a genuine beat against guidance that management openly admitted was built around unknowns.

The RIP: $1.67 adjusted EPS vs. $1.53 estimate; revenue $7.64B vs. $7.62B expected; full-year EPS guided to $1.90 to $2.10 vs. $2.17 consensus; comparable sales expected to range from -0.5% to +0.5% for fiscal 2026.

"Where will gas prices be the remainder of the year? How long will the conflict go on in the Middle East? Will the tariffs be refunded?" CEO Tony Spring said on CNBC, laying out the uncertainty driving the cautious guide with unusual candor. 🛍️

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Macro: Initial Jobless Claims (8:30 AM ET), Philly Fed Mfg Index (8:30 AM ET), Existing Home Sales (10:00 AM ET). 📊
Pre-Market Earnings: $PDD, $BABA Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, $LUNR Intuitive Machines Inc Class A, $CSIQ Canadian Solar Inc, $ANVS Annovis Bio Inc, $ACN Accenture, $DRI Darden Restaurants, +2 more. ☀️
After-Market Earnings: $CODX Co-Diagnostics Inc, $FDX FedEx, $TMC TMC the metals company Inc, $MBRX Moleculin Biotech Inc, $VTAK Catheter Precision Inc., $GRWG GrowGeneration Corp, +23 more. 🌙

P.S. You can listen to all of these earnings calls on Stocktwits.

🤑 Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says OpenClaw is ‘definitely the next ChatGPT’

😨 Banksy has been unmasked (again). But does this major Reuters investigation actually tell us something new?

🏠Powell says 'stagflation' is a 1970s term, not what we face today

💰 IRS conducted 505,514 audits last tax season. Here's what to do if you're selected.

📺 Brazil sounds alarm on fertilizers as price spike spurs cheaper alternatives

😡 Rand Paul calls Markwayne Mullin a "man with anger issues" in confirmation hearing

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