Stock Market Live October 29: S&P 500 (VOO) Rises as Investors Await Fed Interest Rate Decision
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- The Federal Reserve (the FOMC) is expected to announce a new target interest rate this afternoon.
- Boeing missed earnings badly but reported stronger than expected Q3 sales.
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Oct 29, 2025 9:53 AM
Live
In further Boeing news, the company announced that it has stabilized production levels of its 737MAX airliner at 38 units per month. Boeing further confirmed that the Federal Aviation Administration has improved a production rate increase to 42 units per month, after requiring Boeing to not exceed 38 units (since last January) while the company worked to improve product quality.
Boeing’s 737 is the company’s most popular product, and key to Boeing’s financial stability going forward. The acceleration in production is a big win for Boeing — but the huge net loss just reported is nonetheless dragging down Boeing stock by nearly 3% this morning.
This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.
Today’s the day. Despite a lack of good government data to help it make its decision, this afternoon the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will announce the results of its latest meeting, and decide whether to raise, lower, or keep interest rates steady in its second-to-last meeting of 2025.
Investors continue to bet on a rate cut — probably sized at 0.25% — and this hope has the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) trading up about 0.25% premarket as well (although the precise size of the gain today is probably a coincidence).
This being “earnings season,” moreover, generally strong earnings reports on Wall Street are also encouraging investors. So let’s dive right into those, with a focus on S&P 500 component companies.
Earnings last night
Travel giant Booking Holdings (Nasdaq: BKNG) reported a huge earnings beat last night. Q3 profits of $99.50 per share were $4.06 better than expected, and Booking hit $9 billion in quarterly sales, about $300 million more than expected.
Gaming company Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: EA) went the other way, reporting much worse results than analysts had forecast. Earnings were only $0.54 per share versus $1.30 expected. Sales also missed the mark by about $50 million at $1.8 billion.
Earnings this morning
Earnings continued to pour in this morning. Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) beat by $0.40 with a $4.95 Q3 profit, although its sales of $17.6 billion came just short of predictions.
Verizon (NYSE: VZ) beat by two cents with a $1.21 profit. Q3 revenue of $33.8 billion fell about $400 million short of predictions. Focusing on cash profits, management reiterated its guidance that it will generate between $19.5 billion and $20.5 billion in free cash flow this year.
And the biggest news of the morning: Boeing (NYSE: BA) reported a gigantic earnings miss today, caused by a large charge to earnings for its 777X airliner program. Boeing reported $7.47 (heh) per share in “core” losses, and $7.17 per share GAAP, both numbers much worse than the mere $0.46 that Wall Street was expecting. Revenue was the bright spot at Boeing, though, coming in at a strong $23.3 billion.