Stock Market Today: S&P 500, Dow Jones Futures Gain Ahead of FOMC's Interest Rate Decision — INTC, SKHY, LEN, TCOM in Focus

U.S. stocks look set for a positive open on Wednesday, with futures for the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite rising after declining on Tuesday.

The Federal Open Market Committee’s two-day meeting will end today, with all eyes on the FOMC’s policy direction. The CME Group’s FedWatch tool projections show markets pricing in a 92.5% likelihood of the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates tomorrow.

At the time of writing, the 10-year Treasury bond yielded 5%, while the the 2-year Treasury bond yielded 4.66%.

Meanwhile, the economic fallout of the U.S.-Iran war continues, despite Brent Crude Futures slipping 0.68% to $108 per barrel. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) highlighted a Congressional Budget Office estimate that the conflict has cost the Department of Defense nearly $40 billion and driven "nearly half" of U.S. inflation. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) slammed President Donald Trump for blaming Ukraine for high diesel prices.

Index	Performance (+/-)
Dow Jones	0.10%
S&P 500	0.22%
Nasdaq 100	0.43%
Russell 2000	0.14%

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, respectively, rose in premarket on Wednesday. The SPY was up 0.17% at $758.70, while the QQQ advanced 0.38% to $707.20.

Stocks In Focus

FTAI Aviation

• FTAI Aviation Ltd. (NASDAQ:FTAI) rose 2.87% in premarket trading on Wednesday as it announced a $500 million buyback program.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that FTAI maintains a weak price trend in the long, short, and medium terms, with a good growth score.

Sobr Safe

• Sobr Safe Inc. (NASDAQ:SOBR) plunged 35.91% premarket after the company disclosed that Nasdaq will delist its common stock effective Wednesday.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that SOBR maintains a weak price trend in the long, short, and medium terms.

Trip.com Group

• Trip.com Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:TCOM) rose 4.33%% after posting better-than-expected results for the second quarter.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that TCOM maintains a weak price trend in the long, short, and medium terms, with a good value score.

SK Hynix and Intel

• SK Hynix Inc. ADR (NASDAQ:SKHY) rose 3.14%, and Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) jumped 5.33% in Wednesday’s premarket as a Euronext Markets report said that the companies are discussing a deal that could bring SKHY chip manufacturing to the U.S. for the first time.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that INTC maintains a weak price trend in the medium term but a strong trend in the long and short.

Lennar

• Lennar Corp. (NYSE:LEN) was 0.062% higher as analysts expect it to report quarterly earnings of $1.30 per share on revenue of $8.31 billion after the closing bell.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that LEN maintains a weak price trend in the long, medium, and short terms, with a poor quality score.

Cues From Last Session

Consumer discretionary, consumer staples, and utilities stocks recorded the biggest losses on Tuesday, while energy and materials bucked the market trend to close higher, dragging most S&P 500 sectors into negative territory.

Index	Performance (+/-)	Value
Dow Jones	-0.63%	52,093.11
S&P 500	-0.45%	7,585.73
Nasdaq Composite	-0.78%	25,981.57
Russell 2000	-0.76%	2,870.29

Insights From Analysts

As the Federal Reserve prepares for its highly anticipated Sept. 16 announcement, markets are weighing the long-term impact of potential rate hikes on the S&P 500.

According to historical data from Carson Group’s Ryan Detrick, the S&P 500 has faced “muted returns” during extended tightening cycles. Since World War II, there have been 12 cycles where the Fed hiked rates five or more times. While stocks were “usually higher” during these periods—posting positive returns 72.7% of the time—the median annualized return was a modest 5.6%.

Since WWII, there have been 12 cycles that saw the Fed hike at least five times.

Stocks were usually higher during the hiking cycle, but muted returns were common.

Assuming they start hiking tomorrow, the bigger questions is how many more hikes could be around the corner? pic.twitter.com/i3Q8RSkR1j

— Ryan Detrick, CMT (@RyanDetrick) September 16, 2026

However, Wall Street remains optimistic about near-term resilience. LPL Research notes that in the six tightening cycles since 1994, the S&P 500 achieved a robust median 12-month gain of 10.7% following an initial rate increase.

Historically, rate hikes do not typically derail bull markets unless they coincide with rising recession risks. Currently, elevated household net worth and widespread fixed-rate mortgages are buffering consumers against tighter monetary policy, heavily dampening the traditional economic impact of higher rates.

Upcoming Economic Data

Here’s what investors will be keeping an eye on Wednesday:

• The FOMC’s rate decision is scheduled to be announced by 2 p.m. ET.

Commodities, Crypto, And Global Equity Markets

Crude Oil WTI futures were trading lower in the early New York session by 0.99% to hover around $104.78 per barrel.

Gold Spot US Dollar rose 0.88% to hover around $4,331.85 per ounce. The U.S. Dollar Index spot was 0.04% higher at the 99.6550 level.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) was trading 1.40% lower at $75,855.46 per coin over the last 24 hours.

Asian markets were higher on Wednesday as Japan’s Nikkei 225, India’s Nifty 50, South Korea’s Kospi, China’s CSI 300, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, and Australia’s ASX 200 indices rose. European markets were also mostly higher in early trading.

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