| Here’s what my colleague, market strategist Mike “Willo” Wilson says happened while we were sleeping… It was a night of respite in offshore markets as the Federal Reserve held rates steady in a range of 4.25%-4.5% as they have all year, but continued to pencil in two interest-rate cuts in 2025. US stocks and interest rates were little changed. The dollar ended mixed against major peers as markets await president Trump’s next step in the Israel-Iran conflict. On the local data front, Australian jobs growth should ease. ASX stock index futures point to a subdued opening. President Donald Trump concluded a meeting Wednesday with top advisers as he weighed whether to plunge the US into the ongoing war between Israel and Iran, but the White House offered few clues about whether he had decided to join the offensive aimed at destroying Tehran’s nuclear program. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump approved an attack plan targeting Iran on Tuesday but withheld the final authorization to see if officials in Tehran would meet his demands to abandon its nuclear program. New projections from US Fed officials showed a growing divide among policymakers over the trajectory for borrowing costs as tariffs make their way through the US economy. The Federal Open Market Committee released new economic forecasts showing they expect weaker growth, higher inflation and higher unemployment this year. Air India is reducing international services using widebody planes by 15% as the nation’s flag carrier grapples with the fallout from a fatal Boeing Co. 787 crash last week and an Israel-Iran clash in the Middle East. Microsoft is planning to cut thousands of jobs, particularly in sales, as part of the company’s latest move to trim its workforce amid heavy spending on AI. The terminations would follow a previous round of layoffs in May that hit 6,000 people and fell hardest on product and engineering positions, largely sparing customer-facing roles like sales and marketing. | 
