Here's your closing bell brief for Wednesday, April 29th. I'm Catherine Sullivan for the Wall Street Journal.

U.S. stocks finished mostly lower today as investors reacted to a divided Federal Reserve.

The central bank held interest rates steady despite four officials dissenting from the decision.

The Dow fell 0.6%, while the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ finished mostly flat. The major indices paired earlier losses

after Jerome Powell said he would stay on the Fed board past the end of his term as chair next month.

Crude oil futures jumped 7% after we reported that President Trump told AIDS to prepare

for an extended blockade of Iran. Among individual companies, Starbucks shares rose 8.5%. Chief

Executive Brian Nichol said a sales rebound for the coffee giant is picking up steam. Robin Hood Markets' shares fell 13%.

The online brokerage reported quarterly profits that missed analyst estimates,

though earnings still rose, helped by the company's foray into prediction markets.

Shares in meta-platforms fell about 5% in after-hours trading,

following an earning report showing increased

capital expenditures for the year. And finally, in earnings, Microsoft announced strong growth in cloud

computing, but failed to allay investors fears that its bet on AI will convert into profits.

The stock fell nearly 2% after the bell.

Heads up, an artificial intelligence tool helped us make this episode by creating summaries that were based on WSJ reporting and then

reviewed and adapted by an editor. We'll have a lot more coverage of the day's news on the

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