US markets end higher on Wednesday

02 Feb 2023 Evaluate

The US markets settled higher on Wednesday with Nasdaq ending gain of two percent. The late-day rally on markets came even as the Federal Reserve announced its widely expected decision to raise interest rates by another quarter point and signaled further rate hikes. After a two-day meeting, the Fed said it has decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 4.50 to 4.75 percent. The latest interest rate hike comes after the central bank raised rates by 75 basis points in November and by 50 basis points in December. The Fed also said it anticipates ongoing increases in interest rates will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2 percent over time.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank does not believe rates are yet at a sufficiently restrictive policy stance and suggested a couple of more rate hikes will be needed to get to that level. The next monetary policy meeting is scheduled for March 21-22, with CME Group's FedWatch Tool currently indicating an 81.8 percent chance the Fed will raise rates by another 25 basis points. On the sectoral front, Semiconductor stocks turned in some of the market's best performances on the day, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index spiking by 5.2 percent to a five-month closing high. Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) helped lead the sector higher, skyrocketing by 12.6 percent after reporting better than expected fourth quarter results.

Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 6.92 points or 0.02 percent to 34,092.96, Nasdaq surged 231.77 points or 2 percent to 11,816.32 and S&P 500 was up by 42.61 points or 1.05 percent to 4,119.21.

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