Stock market today: Most of Wall Street rises after the Fed cuts interest rates
The S&P 500 climbed 0.7% to add to its surge from the day before following Donald Trump’s presidential victory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was virtually unchanged and edged down by less than a point, while the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.5%.
The Fed’s announcement that it was easing its main interest rate caused few ripples in the market because even the precise size of it was so well anticipated by investors.
The central bank began easing rates in September and indicated more cuts were likely to come, as it focuses more on keeping the job market humming after helping get inflation nearly down to its 2% target. What’s less certain in the minds of investors now is how much Trump’s victory may upset the Fed’s plans.
Trump is pushing for tariffs and other policies that economists say could drive inflation higher, along with the economy’s growth. Traders have already begun paring forecasts for how many cuts to rates the Fed will deliver next year because of that. While lower rates can boost the economy, they can also give inflation more fuel.
For now, Fed Chair
With any president, Powell said the Fed looks at possible policy changes and simulates how they could affect the economy. Only after looking at the overall effect of all the policies do Fed officials decide how that should shape where interest rates go. And at this point, Powell said it’s still not clear what the policies will be after Trump returns to the
“We don’t guess, we don’t speculate and we don’t assume,” he said.
On
They helped make up for bank stocks, which gave back some of their stellar gains from the day before. Other “Trump trades” that had rocketed higher after the election also lost some of their juice.
Smaller
The stock that’s become most synonymous with the president-elect,
All told, the S&P 500 rose 44.06 points to 5,973.10. The Dow edged down by 0.59 to 43,729.34, and the Nasdaq composite gained 285.99 to 19,269.46.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year
A report on Thursday showed slightly more
In stock markets abroad, London’s
In
“I think everybody’s going to be worried about Trump’s tariffs because that’s one of the things in his playbook. And so we’ll have to see how things develop in the early stages of his presidency this time,” said
Stocks rallied 2% in
Trump has promised to slap blanket 60% tariffs on all Chinese imports, raising them still more if
But the impact may be less drastic than feared,
“We expect shipments to stay strong in the coming months –- any drag from potential Trump tariffs may not materialize until the second half of next year,” Huang said.
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AP Business Writers
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