Stocks - Wall Street Rallies as Investors Turn Back to Earnings
Investing.com – Wall Street bounced back on Thursday as investors shrugged off suggestions that the Federal Reserve will wait and see before cutting rates again.
The Fed cut rates by 25 basis points on Wednesday and indicated that it would not be in a rush to ease monetary policy further anytime soon. Markets are still pricing in an additional cut as soon as September, but a third cut is no longer seen as likely.
“While this move was characterized as more of an insurance cut, the (Federal Open Market Committee) may now be in wait and see mode to see if its fears over the trade war and global slowdown come to fruition,” Lee Ferridge, head of multi-asset strategy at State Street (NYSE:STT) Global Markets, said in emailed comments.
The Dow rose 73 points or 0.3% by 9:43 AM ET (13:43 GMT), while the S&P 500 was up 7 points or 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite gained 50 points or 0.6%.
Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) jumped 1.5% after its earnings came in higher than expected, while Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) gained 0.7% and General Motors (NYSE:GM) was up 1.8% as its North American business - especially trucks - offset a steep decline in profit in China.
DuPont (NYSE:DD) rose 1.1% after its earnings beat estimates, while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) gained 1.2% and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) gained 2.1%.
Elsewhere, Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) slumped 7.6% after it priced its secondary offering of 3.25 shares 18% below Wednesday’s closing price, while Fitbit (NYSE:FIT) plummeted 21.3% after cutting its guidance for the next quarter.
In commodities, crude oil slumped 2.6% to $57.05 a barrel, which helped to drag Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) down 0.9% and Chevron (NYSE:CVX) down 0.4%.
Gold futures slipped 1.4% to $1,417.35 a troy ounce. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, hit a two-year high of 98.697 before retracing to 98.580, up 0.3% on the day.
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