US markets end higher on Friday

26 Aug 2023 Evaluate

The US markets ended higher on Friday as investors reacted positively to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's remarks at the Jackson Hole Symposium. Fed Chair Powell reiterated the central bank's target of 2 percent inflation, and called it challenging to know when monetary policy is restrictive enough to know in real time when such a stance has been achieved. Powell claimed there are some challenges that are common to all tightening cycles. For example, real interest rates are now positive and well above mainstream estimates of the neutral policy rate. 

He said ‘We see the current stance of policy as restrictive, putting downward pressure on economic activity, hiring, and inflation. But we cannot identify with certainty the neutral rate of interest, and thus there is always uncertainty about the precise level of monetary policy restraint’. In the stock specific developments, boeing climbed nearly 3 percent. Intel gained about 2.1 percent and Salesforce.com advanced nearly 2 percent. Visa, Nike, Caterpillar, Apple, IBM, Walt Disney and Microsoft gained 1 to 1.3 percent. Cisco Systems, Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds, Merck and P&G also closed notably higher. Shares of Workday Inc. rallied 5.4 percent after the company reported second-quarter earnings of $78.66 million, as against a loss of $64.16 million in the second quarter of the previous financial year.

Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 247.48 points or 0.73 percent to 34,346.9, Nasdaq surged 126.67 points or 0.94 percent to 13,590.65 and S&P 500 was up by 29.4 points or 0.67 percent to 4,405.71.


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