What Happened?

A number of stocks jumped in the morning session after investors scooped up equities, shaking off the initial concerns inferred from the Fed's dot plot, with tech stocks leading the charge. 

As a reminder, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points the previous day and signaled that more reductions could come before year-end and beyond. Initially when the cut was announced and Fed Chair Powell held his press conference, there was a pullback in the market as the Fed's "dot plot" revealed that only one cut was likely for 2026. This was below the three cuts that had been priced into the markets. 

This was the first interest rate cut of 2025, a move investors had widely anticipated. In response to the decision, stocks rose significantly, positioning major indexes like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to open at record levels. 

The Fed's decision was influenced by signs of a weakening labor market. Lower interest rates are generally seen as positive for stocks because they reduce borrowing costs for businesses and make fixed-income investments like bonds less attractive by comparison, driving capital into the equity market. While Fed Chair Powell noted the path forward has risks, the prospect of looser monetary policy has fueled optimism on Wall Street.

The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.

Among others, the following stocks were impacted:

• Electronic Components & Manufacturing company TTM Technologies (NASDAQ: TTMI) jumped 3.8%. Is now the time to buy TTM Technologies? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Digital Media & Content Platforms company Rumble (NASDAQ: RUM) jumped 2.6%. Is now the time to buy Rumble? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

Zooming In On TTM Technologies (TTMI)

TTM Technologies’s shares are very volatile and have had 23 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.

The previous big move we wrote about was 8 days ago when the stock gained 3.6% after renewed investor enthusiasm for the artificial intelligence boom was sparked by a strong forecast from a major cloud provider. The optimism was ignited by Oracle, which jumped 30% after forecasting a massive increase in AI-powered cloud revenue. 

This outlook overshadowed the company's recent earnings miss and reinforced investor confidence in the long-term AI trend, benefiting companies that provide critical infrastructure for artificial intelligence. Underscoring the bullish sentiment, investment bank Barclays raised its year-end S&P 500 target, citing resilient economic growth and continued investor excitement for AI as key drivers for the market's strength.

TTM Technologies is up 109% since the beginning of the year, and at $51.47 per share, has set a new 52-week high. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of TTM Technologies’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $4,493.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it should be obvious by now that generative AI is going to have a huge impact on how large corporations do business. While Nvidia and AMD are trading close to all-time highs, we prefer a lesser-known (but still profitable) semiconductor stock benefiting from the rise of AI. Click here to access our free report on our favorite semiconductor growth story.