Dollar strong as Fed upholds rates

Stocks fell and the dollar extended gains after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged while confirming it was still on course to hike in December.

Tech underperformed after Jack Dorsey’s Square gave a disappointing forecast and Roku reported slower growth, while a rout in energy companies helped pull down the S&P 500 Index from a one-month high. Oil fell a ninth straight day and reached a bear market. Treasury yields held steady.

Investors had largely anticipated that the Fed wouldn’t change interest rates at today’s announcement, so instead were focused on looking for any signals on the pace of policy tightening into 2019. The central bank said “economic activity has been rising at a strong rate” and job gains “have been strong,” acknowledging a drop in the unemployment rate, while repeating its outlook for “further gradual” rate increases in its statement.

U.S. filings for unemployment benefits held near an almost five-decade low, indicating a robust job market. China reported a surge in exports and imports for October, months before the next round of tariff hikes in the trade war with the U.S. is set to kick in.

Musk replaced as Tesla board chief

Six weeks after settling a securities-fraud lawsuit with federal regulators, Tesla and Elon Musk have made good on one of the agreement’s key provisions — naming a new board chief. The company said a current director, Robyn Denholm, would become its chairwoman immediately. Musk stepped down as chairman last month but remains Tesla’s chief executive. The move to replace Musk as chairman, announced late Wednesday night, was part of a settlement reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission in September to deal with the fallout from his assertion that he had secured funding for a private buyout of the company.

Greyhound sued for interrogations

Lawyers for a California woman asked a state judge Thursday to order Greyhound Lines to stop allowing federal immigration agents to board its buses and demand identification and proof of citizenship from passengers.

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status for all California citizens, was filed by a U.S. citizen, Rocío Cordova, who said she was traveling from San Diego to Phoenix in November 2017 when the Greyhound bus she was riding pulled over on a highway to allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to interrogate passengers.

Cordova accused the nation’s largest motor coach operator of violating state consumer protection laws against unfair and unlawful business practices by allegedly consenting to racial profiling by law enforcement.