PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange ended sharply higher on Wednesday as markets welcomed comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who hinted that the pace of rate hikes could slow.
The US central bank could slow down the pace of its rate hikes as early as December, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday during a debate organized by the Brookings Institution in Washington.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.18%, or 737.24 points, to 34,589.77 points. The wider Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 122.48 points, or 3.09% to 4,080.11 points. The Nasdaq Composite advanced for its part by 484.22 points (4.41%) to 11,467.996.
“It would make sense to moderate the pace of our price increases as we approach the level that should be sufficient to bring inflation down,” Jerome Powell said. “The timing for rate hike moderation could come as early as the December meeting,” he added.
This should be its last public intervention before the monetary policy meeting on December 13-14, after which the Fed is expected to raise rates again.
According to the real-time barometer FedWatch, the hypothesis of a 50 basis point increase in the rate target of the “fed funds” remains largely favored, but no central bank official has really ruled out for the moment that a further increase of 75 points.
In values, 3M lost 0.13%, after saying it was having trouble in its retail business.
Biogen jumped 4.72% after reporting encouraging results for an experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
On the oil market, WTI stood at $80.54 (+3.01%) and Brent at $85.30 (+2.81%).
The dollar was down 0.73% against a basket of currencies a few minutes after the close of Wall Street, while the euro stood at 1.0403 dollars (+0.74%).
On the bond market, ten-year paper fell 12 basis points to settle at 3.6275%. Its five-year counterpart fell 14.9 basis points to 3.7729%.
(Nicolas Delame)