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Market Data Table

Breakfast News: One Fed Hike; More On The Horizon?

September 17, 2026

Wednesday's Markets
S&P 500 7,552 (-0.45%)
Nasdaq 25,978 (-0.01%)
Dow 51,462 (-1.21%)
Bitcoin $75,880 (+0.05%)

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1. What Should You Make of the Fed's First Hike in Three Years?

Chart showing the Federal Funds target rate range from 2020 to 2026, with September showing a 25 basis-point raise to 4%.

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said the quiet part out loud yesterday: Inflation "is too high and has been for too long." The Federal Reserve just ended its three-year streak and raised interest rates Wednesday by a quarter point to a range of 3.75% to 4%.

Growth stocks bore the brunt: The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones all closed lower. Warsh isn't ruling out further hikes. Higher rates mean a higher discount on future profits, so pricey growth and tech stocks often take the first blow.
Some companies could take a hit, but don't panic: Sectors like real estate, utilities, and homebuilders run on borrowed money, so they remain exposed as long as rates hold high. That doesn't break the thesis, though. Companies that can manage debt and generate steady free cash flows are prepared to weather the challenges. That's what matters to investors in the long run.

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2. Salesforce's Path to $63 Billion Sales

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) CEO Marc Benioff took the stage at the Dreamforce event yesterday with a number he's used before. This time, it stands out: Salesforce still expects $63 billion in revenue by fiscal 2030. That's roughly 11% annual growth from last year's $41.5 billion for the customer relationship management (CRM) software giant.

Not an empty five-year promise: 2030 is a long way off, but Salesforce isn't walking into it empty-handed. It generated $14.4 billion of free cash flow last year and funded a $50 billion stock buyback. Salesforce is a strong cash-generation engine.
Salesforce has a deep moat: Its AI sales tool, Agentforce, already generates $1.5 billion in recurring revenue, up 240% year over year in Q2 fiscal year 2027. It's a deep moat with marquee customers like Siemens. Salesforce owns the customer data that AI agents need. Switching that data to a rival CRM is a cost most enterprises won't risk. That's one of the reasons Benioff can look five years out.

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3. Snap's Big Specs Bet

Snap (NYSE:SNAP) has spent years selling "disappearing" photos. It now wants to sell a $2,195 computer that one can wear. The company confirmed partnerships with Salesforce, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) to bring workplace tools into its Specs augmented reality (AR) glasses. Salesforce's Agentforce lets a warehouse or field worker pull company data hands-free, Nvidia's chips do the seeing, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) handles voice commands.

The stack is real, not just branding: Snap named specific jobs for the glasses: pulling data, taking voice commands, and automating tasks. Think of a factory floor, a retail counter, or a field-service call. We love to see companies name exact use cases instead of releasing vague press releases.
The competition already leads: Meta (NASDAQ:META) leads the AR and virtual reality (VR) hardware race. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has struggled to make its own headset a mainstream hit. Snap has to do one thing to get it right: land enterprise partnerships and pull customers away from rivals, not just add another gadget to its lineup.

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4. The New Chip Bet: $3.2 Trillion by 2030

It took the semiconductor industry 50 years to build a $1 trillion market. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) thinks it's about to add a second trillion in four, raising its 2030 forecast to $3.2 trillion on stronger memory and data center demand. Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) followed with a case for who's buying that silicon: 6.5 million humanoid robots shipped annually by 2035. Goldman figures each one will carry $3,000 to $6,000 of chips.

Warehouses are the proving ground: Amazon runs more than 1 million robots across 300-plus facilities, and Goldman estimates automation could save $72 billion through 2030. That's real money that should show up in Amazon's margins.
Reliability and cost still have to prove out: Goldman itself calls reliability, training data, and cost open problems, not solved ones. If those get fixed, chipmakers riding both forecasts have years of demand ahead. If not, BofA's memory-driven boom still stands on its own.

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5. The Top-Dog Trait, Now Facing Rogue AI Agents

Team Rule Breakers

CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) has been a huge winner. We recommended it for the first time in Rule Breakers in August 2021 at $69.69, split-adjusted (and again at $69 just two months later). Shares trade near $240 today.

David Gardner's first Rule Breaker trait: We look for top dogs and first movers in important emerging industries. CrowdStrike pioneered Endpoint Detection and Response, a new way of protecting computers and networks from attackers. It changed the way companies approach cybersecurity, and it hasn't looked back.
The next emerging industry arrives: More threats are on the horizon as AI Agents proliferate. Here's CEO George Kurtz: "We're seeing agents go rogue, swarming to attack and moving beyond their guardrails to autonomously harm. Agents are proving capable of data theft, permission alteration and full-on command and control at scale, leading to organizational compromise. The agent of today is both a friend and foe."

If CrowdStrike makes good on its promise to protect its customers in the emerging market, we're confident its stock can continue to handily beat the market over the long term.

That said, the stock is not cheap by any measure. Nor would we expect it to be. And as Rule Breakers, we're comfortable with its position in our portfolios.

Team Rule Breakers has a 5-year price prediction of $365.

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6. Today's Question

When interest rates rise, do you revisit your portfolio or stick to your long-term conviction?

Discuss with friends and family, or become a member to hear what your fellow Fools are saying!

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