(Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Wednesday after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s November meeting showed that rate hikes may slow soon.
A “significant majority” of policymakers agreed that “it will likely be appropriate soon” to slow the pace of rate hikes, according to the meeting minutes.
Since the Fed’s last meeting on November 1-2, investors have been more optimistic that price pressure has begun to ease, suggesting that smaller interest rate hikes could curb inflation.
“What the stock markets needed to see for continued recent strength is what we got on the record,” said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.
At 2:19 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) It rose 100.48 points, or 0.29%, to 34,198.58 points. Standard & Poor’s 500 (.SPX) It rose 21.14 points, or 0.53%, to 4,024.72 points. and the Nasdaq Composite (nineteenth) It added 103.99 points, equivalent to 0.93%, to 11,278.39 points.
Trading volume was thin ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, with the US stock market open for half of the session on Friday.
Earlier in the morning, a mixed batch of economic data led to a drop in the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which helped stocks rally.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week and US business activity contracted for the fifth consecutive month in November. Consumer sentiment rose and home sales rose above expectations.
Advances outnumbered losers on the New York Stock Exchange by a ratio of 1.77 to 1; On the Nasdaq, a ratio of 1.69 to 1 favored the highs.
The S&P 500 hit a new 52-week high, and there were no new lows. The Nasdaq Composite recorded 81 new highs and 112 new lows.
(Reporting by Carolina Mandel, Shriyashi Sanyal, and Ankika Biswas); Editing by Chunak Dasgupta, Arun Koyoor, Anil D’Silva, and Richard Chang
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