Wall Street rallies on hopes of Fed policy pause
For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock markets, click LIVE/ or type LIVE/ in a news window
Jobless claims remain low, new home sales rise
Block Inc slides after Hindenburg discloses short position
US SEC threatens to sue Coinbase, shares drop
Regional banks head lower
Indexes up: Dow 0.44%, S&P 0.66%, Nasdaq 1.30%
New throughout, adds NEW YORK dateline, changes byline
By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters) -Wall Street advanced on Thursday as market participants looked past remarks by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday and weighed the possibility that the central bank will pause its restrictive interest rate hikes in the near future.
All three indexes marked the three-year anniversary of the nadir of the COVID-19 crash by heading higher, with megacap growth stocks, led by Microsoft MSFT.O and Apple Inc AAPL.O, providing the most upside muscle and putting the tech-heavy Nasdaq out front.
"Today the market is bouncing back on what was a dovish Fed hike yesterday," said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird in Louisville, Kentucky. "Powell did a good job sticking to the party line on inflation and continued to jawbone hawkish even though the hike leaned dovish."
"It’s not too crazy for markets to see that pivot in the near future," Mayfield added.
The risk-on session reversed Wednesday's late-session sell-off after the Fed's rate hike, Powell's subsequent Q&A session and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's testimony before congress in which she ruled out blanket protection for all deposits.
In view of recent turmoil in the financial sector, which began with the failures of SVB Financial Group SIVB.O and Signature Bank SBNY.O, worries that the Fed was overtightening and pushing the economy perilously close to recession, Powell's reiterance of the Fed's determination to cool inflation sparked a late session flight to safety.
Jitters among regional banks persist, with the KBW Regional Bank index .KRX sliding 2.3%.
Comments from the Bank of England that inflation will probably quickly fade also helped fuel hopes of light at the end of the central bank tightening tunnel.
The BoE's commentary "paints a picture of a global central banking system that's ready to slow the pace of their hiking," Mayfield said.
But economic data released on Thursday showed jobless claims inching lower and new home sales posting a surprise gain, providing fresh evidence that the economy is yet to show the kind of softening that would lend itself to cooling inflation.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 142.01 points, or 0.44%, to 32,172.12, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 26.11 points, or 0.66%, to 3,963.08 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 151.81 points, or 1.3%, to 11,821.77.
Among the 11 sectors of the S&P 500, communication services .SPLRCL and tech .SPLRCT led the percentage gainers.
First Republic Bank FRC.N dropped 8.6% in volatile trading in the wake of Yellen's testimony.
Chipmaker Nvidia Corp NVDA.O advanced 2.2% after Needham raised its price target.
Block Inc SQ.N shares slid 14.6% after Hindenburg Research disclosed its short positions in the company.
Crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc COIN.O dropped 14.0% in the wake of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's threat to sue the company.
Accenture ACN.N surged 7.1% after it announced plans to cut about 2.5% of its workforce.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.11-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.13-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted four new 52-week highs and 14 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 45 new highs and 197 new lows.
Reporting by Stephen Culp; Additional reporting by Amruta Khandekar and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru
Editing by Marguerita Choy
免責聲明: XM Group提供線上交易平台的登入和執行服務，允許個人查看和/或使用網站所提供的內容，但不進行任何更改或擴展其服務和訪問權限，並受以下條款與條例約束：（i）條款與條例；（ii）風險提示；（iii）完全免責聲明。網站內部所提供的所有資訊，僅限於一般資訊用途。請注意，我們所有的線上交易平台內容並不構成，也不被視為進入金融市場交易的邀約或邀請 。金融市場交易會對您的投資帶來重大風險。
所有缐上交易平台所發佈的資料，僅適用於教育/資訊類用途，不包含也不應被視爲適用於金融、投資稅或交易相關諮詢和建議，或是交易價格紀錄，或是任何金融商品或非應邀途徑的金融相關優惠的交易邀約或邀請。
本網站的所有XM和第三方所提供的内容，包括意見、新聞、研究、分析、價格其他資訊和第三方網站鏈接，皆爲‘按原狀’，並作爲一般市場評論所提供，而非投資建議。請理解和接受，所有被歸類為投資研究範圍的相關内容，並非爲了促進投資研究獨立性，而根據法律要求所編寫，而是被視爲符合營銷傳播相關法律與法規所編寫的内容。請確保您已詳讀並完全理解我們的非獨立投資研究提示和風險提示資訊，相關詳情請點擊 這裡查看。
