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Good morning from the newsroom of the Financial Times.

Today is Thursday, August 1st. Good morning from the newsroom of the Financial Times.

Today is Thursday, August 1st.

And this is your FT news briefing.

The Federal Reserve goes ahead with its first interest rate reduction

since the global financial crisis,

and the Trump administration imposes sanctions on Iran's foreign minister.

Plus, other companies are worried that their data has been caught up in the Capital One security breach.

And Qualcomm reports a dimmed fourth quarter outlook.

And Jude Weber, the FT's correspondent in Mexico City City talks with me about the country's second-quarter

GDP data being much lower than what President Andreas Manuel Lopez-Obrador has promised.

I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day.

Going into Wednesday, it was widely expected the Federal Reserve would cut U.S. interest rates, and the U.S. Central Bank did just

that to the tune of 25 basis points.

The reduction comes even though U.S. unemployment remains near record lows lows and consumption has remained resilient.

But Fed officials are concerned about persistently low inflation, which is running below the Central

Bank's 2% target.

F.T. markets reporter Colby Smith

was watching how investors reacted on Wednesday.

U.S. equity markets sold off

...