How will America's central bankers interpret the economy today? I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. The Federal Reserve briefing on the economy, jobs, and interest rates is due in about three hours. It's likely to be a quiet start to an eventful year for the central bank. Here's Susan Schmidt, portfolio manager at Exchange Capital Resources.

Investors today are expecting the Fed to make no changes at all to the current interest rate levels,

and that's at 4.5%. Remember that the Fed has already dropped interest rates twice. Investors are

really expecting the Fed to hold steady. It's still too uncertain

to know what the changes are from the new administration and how they will impact the economy.

Also, Microsoft and Facebook are set to report quarterly results today. The NASDAQ index on Tuesday

recovered two-thirds of its big loss Monday that came after news a China-based

company has a greatly streamlined but workable AI system.

More efficient AI models are expected to be helpful, but what it does mean is that they can

be achieved at a much lower cost if this deep-seek model can be replicated elsewhere.

That means that companies might be getting lower pricing.

That's why those prices of the stocks are being impacted.

The profitability of those companies might change.

It doesn't eliminate or slow down the expected growth in AI.

If anything, it speeds it up.

Analyst Susan Schmidt in Chicago, last summer, the Justice Department under the Biden administration, sued a rail company. It alleged that Norfolk Southern routinely failed to give Amtrak passenger trains preference over freight trains as required by law.

Now, Norfolk has asked a judge to move the case to a different federal court or to dismiss it. As Marketplace's Henry Ep reports, the new administration could take a different route.

This dispute stems from the creation of Amtrak in the early 1970s. Before that, freight rail companies had to offer passenger rail service,

but it was losing them a lot of money. So Congress created Amtrak to take over passenger trains.

Sean Gensgale at the Rail Passengers Association says in return, the freight companies had to give Amtrak priority on the rails. Because unlike tank cars full of coal, passengers mind when they are put out on a siding for

three, four, five hours. But despite the law, Amtrak passengers still get stuck waiting for

freight trains to go by pretty often, especially on long-distance routes, Gene Scale says.

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