Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Market moves : Stocks were relatively muted following record closes for the S & P 500 and Nasdaq on Monday. Investors are mostly sitting on their hands ahead of Wednesday’s Federal Reserve interest rate decision. The central bank’s policymaking committee is expected to cut interest rates by 25 basis points. That’s priced into the market, although there is still a low single-digit probability of a 50 basis point rate cut, according to the CME FedWatch tool. While investors want to see rates decrease in hopes of unlocking the frozen housing industry and manufacturing sector, a 50-basis-point cut could spook Wall Street because it would signal the economy is in worse shape than what the markets currently believe. At the same time, rate cuts are expected at every Fed meeting through January 2026. What Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has to say about the rate path could move markets, too. U.S. manufacturing : Eli Lilly announced on Tuesday plans to build a $5 billion plant near Richmond, Virginia. The announcement comes as President Donald Trump has threatened significant tariffs against the pharmaceutical industry, which relies on imports from Europe. Lilly has been one of the more aggressive pharma companies when it comes to reshoring plans. The company said in February it was doubling its investment in U.S. manufacturing to over $50 billion since 2020 by building four new pharmaceutical sites. The new facility marks the first of the four, and it’s one of three that will focus on manufacturing so-called active pharmaceutical ingredients and drug products used in targeted cancer and autoimmune drugs. Eli Lilly currently does not have a plant that makes these products, and CEO David Ricks told CNBC’s Angelical Peebles that this facility will allow the company to move some of its production from third parties and
