California Declares State Of Emergency Over Bird Flu

California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an emergency proclamation on Wednesday in response to growing concerns over bird flu cases in the state and across the country.

The State of Emergency proclamation comes after more bird flu cases were detected in Southern California dairy cows, the governor's office stated. Wednesday also saw the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report the first severe illness in a person due to bird flu from a Louisiana case.

"This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak," Newsom said in a statement.

As health and public officials note, to date there have been no recorded cases of person-to-person spread of bird flu in California or anywhere else.

Fed Cuts Key Interest Rate To Lowest In Nearly Two Years

• As widely expected, the Federal Reserve lowered its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, its lowest since February 2023.

• A lower fed funds rate reduces borrowing costs on all kinds of loans, boosting the economy as the Fed tries to prevent a severe rise in unemployment.

• It was the third rate cut in as many meetings of the Fed's policy committee, which began cutting rates from a two-decade high in September.

• The Fed indicated future rate cuts may be fewer and further between because inflation has stayed stubbornly above the Fed's goal of a 2% annual rate.

Stocks crater as Federal Reserve’s inflation concern swells

The S&P 500 fell 3% — its second-worst day of 2024. The Nasdaq 100 slumped 3.6% and the Russell 2000 cratered 4.4%, its biggest loss this year.

The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF RSP $174.95 (-3.01%) closed below its November 5 level, erasing all of its post election gains, as did small caps.

Day 13 in a row of breadth is bad, but this time even worse: the S&P 500’s advance-decline line was extremely negative: the number of falling stocks outnumbered those that rose by 464, the lowest reading this year.

The options market thought this would be the sleepiest Federal Reserve meeting of the year, and boy was it wrong. The S&P 500 and Russell 2000 were comfortably in the green ahead of the central bank’s rate decision. The Fed’s projections showed heightened concern about inflation risk given recent readings that have surprised to the upside as well as potential policies that might be pursued by the incoming Trump administration.

The median monetary policymaker thinks two interest rate cuts would be appropriate in 2025; the market swung even more dramatically and now is pricing in only one 25 basis-point reduction.

Some lowlights among individual stocks: Tesla TSLA $442.00 (-8.28%) fell 8.3%, Broadcom AVGO $223.59 (-7.11%) retreated by 6.9%, and GameStop GME $28.90 (-8.54%) was down 8.5%.

Jabil Circuit JBL $145.00 (7.31%) managed to book a strong 7.3% gain on the heels of its quarterly results and upgraded sales forecast.

Quantum Computing QUBT $23.17 (52.60%) was one of the other rare Fed-proof stocks out there: shares were up about 40% heading into the announcement, and finished even higher than that.

• Stocks clobbered after Fed decision.

• Intel finally notches a GPU win, confirms Arc B580 is selling out after stellar reviews.

• Why Americans are outraged over health insurance and what could change

• You can now text and call ChatGPT on the phone.

Hong Kong to Taipei is the most popular flight in the world.