Your Evening Briefing: Size of Expected Fed Rate Cut Essentially a Coin Flip’

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut interest rates on Wednesday for the first time since March 2020, after raising them to the highest level in years to tame post-pandemic inflation. For weeks, investors have been debating the size of the cut. And on the eve of the decision, there’s still not much more clarity about whether the cut will be 25 or 50 basis points. One bank economist called it “essentially a coin flip.” US retail sales surprisingly increased in August and a resilient consumer could complicate the picture, especially given that inflation continues to slow and the economy overall remains strong. Investors are also looking for clues around future cuts by turning to the history books and looking back to Alan Greenspan’s Fed of the 1990s, which successfully averted a recession. Meanwhile, former New York Fed President Bill Dudley says the Fed should make a big statement now in Bloomberg Opinion. Here’s your markets wrap. —

Under mounting legal challenges, and complaints from users and parents, Instagram unveiled new privacy and parental-control measures targeting teen users. The new controls make teen accounts private by default, limit who those users can send private messages to, and put teens in the “most restrictive” tier when it comes to viewing sensitive content, such as posts that show people fighting or certain cosmetic procedures. The new settings represent the company’s most aggressive effort to date to protect younger users, and come after years of criticism that Instagram, which is owned by Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc., has failed to adequately protect young people online. Meta was sued last year by a group of more than 30 states alleging the company’s apps are harming young people, and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg appeared at a congressional hearing earlier this year on child safety where Meta was criticized for enabling sexual exploitation. (Zuckerberg has fought in court to avoid facing personal liability for any alleged harm.)