Mastercard operates the world's second-largest electronic payments network, providing processing services and payment product platforms, including credit, debit, ATM, prepaid, and commercial payments under the Mastercard, Maestro, and Cirrus brands. Mastercard went public in 2006 and is a member of the S&P 500.

U.S. stocks fell on Thursday on disappointing results from Tech companies. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted their largest one-day losses since the beginning of September. The S&P 500 was down 1.9%, the Nasdaq lost 2.8% and the Dow fell 0.9%. Both crude oil and gold traded higher.

Mastercard is the second-largest payment processor in the world, having processed close to over $9 trillion in volume during 2023. Mastercard operates in over 200 countries and processes transactions in over 150 currencies.

The Federal Reserve wrapped up its latest Open Market Committee meeting yesterday and, as expected, lowered the current federal funds rate for the first time since 2020. But the central bank surprised some by taking the rather extraordinary step of reducing the rate by 50 basis points (bps), as opposed to the normal 25-basis-point move. Why the big cut? In our opinion, the Federal Reserve is clearly shifting its focus from fighting inflation to protecting the employment environment. Since the Fed started raising rates in 2021, CPI inflation has fallen from readings above 9.0% to readings below 3.0% -- and continues to edge toward the central bank's goal of 2.0%. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate has increased from 3.4% to 4.1% and monthly payrolls gains have slowed from 300k to 100k. Indeed, the Fed has lifted its year-end target for the unemployment rate to 4.4% from 4.0% last June. Based on the Fed's decision, its commentary, and the forecasts of its governors, we are making adjustments to our interest-rate outlook. We are maintaining our forecast for two more rate cuts in 2024 -- both of which we think will be 25 basis points. We are adding a forecast for an additional rate cut in 2025, bringing our estimate to three cuts for the year. Those cuts will bring the fed funds rate down toward 3.5%, which, assuming inflation continues to drop toward 2.0%, will return real, inflation-adjusted rates back toward historical averages.