Stocks (^DJI, ^IXIC, ^GSPC) are opening higher Thursday morning after retreating from recent highs, posting their worst day of 2024 on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve's decision to hold interest rates steady.

Yahoo Finance's Jared Blikre breaks down the details.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Critical day here for the market. We want to check out some of the action that we are seeing at the open following that Fed decision or Fed rhetoric that we got there from Jay Powell last night, and then also what we could hear from some of those tech giants today. Jared.

JARED BLIKRE: That's right, Seana. My group chats, for the record, are always about bonds. So this is much more interesting.

SEANA SMITH: Well, that's even more boring.

JARED BLIKRE: Well, we got an updraft today. That's after a big downdraft yesterday. And you guys are absolutely right. It was a worst day of the year for stocks, but also the best day of the year for bonds, which means the yields were dropping.

And let's take a look inside the market at the sector action then. We got some big picture stuff for you. And materials, XLB, you don't usually see that leading, but it is today. Up 1.5%. Followed by communication services.

That's Alphabet and Meta and others. And then consumer discretionary, which is Tesla and Amazon. To the downside, we got utilities, health care, staples, and real estate, all four of those defensive sectors. So actually a pretty bullish setup, even though you see some red on your screen.

Well, I want to go now to the S&P 500. Yesterday was a pretty interesting day in the market. And let me just show you. We got this zigzag price action here. And it's funny Jay Woods was just talking and quoting bespoke.

And here's something that they were referencing yesterday. Today, and this is yesterday, was a pretty bread-and-butter Powell Fed day. And in blue, we have what usually happens on Fed day with Powell. And then in red is what actually happened pretty close there. So, why do I say this?

It has predictive power, so it tells us that today could potentially be a down day as well. But I want to focus on the long term here. And this comes by Urban Carmel. The S&P 500 up three months in a row, greater than 15%. That's what just happened. Since 1980, there have been nine other instances.

None was atop. All mostly were the initiation of an uptrend, but a few 3% to 7% corrections in the interim. So, we might get a little bit of a slow down here in the interim, but bullish over the long term. I just want to show one more chart.

This is the year. What usually happens with stocks February, you can see it by all three of these metrics. It tends to be down. So that's that interim that could be weak here, guys.

BRAD SMITH: Jared Blikre, certainly do appreciate it. And since we're disclosing what our group chats are like, don't text me unless you want to know what long and variable lags feel like.