US stocks were mostly up today. The S&P 500 index closed almost unchanged, having had its seventh profitable week in a row. It is the longest such streak since 2017.
Dow Jones Hits Record, Fed Cautious on Rate Cuts
The Dow Jones index, which includes shares of thirty leading U.S. companies, gained 0.15 percent today to end trading at a record 37,305.16 points. The broader S&P 500 index weakened 0.01 percent to 4,719.19 points and the Nasdaq Composite index, which includes many companies in the high-tech sector, rose 0.35 percent to 14,813.92 points.
Fed Signals End to Tightening, Market Impact
Some of the market’s optimism was tempered by comments from U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) Bank of New York (Fed) chief John Williams about cutting interest rates. “We’re not really talking about cutting rates right now,” he said. He deemed speculation on interest rate cuts “premature”.
The Fed left the benchmark interest rate unchanged on Wednesday, as expected. The bank signaled that its monetary tightening is over and will reduce interest costs next year.
“This week, in my view, brought the realization that (Fed chief Jerome Powell) doesn’t want to punish the economy too much by keeping (rates) higher for an extended period of time for no good reason,” stated analyst Kim Forrest of Bokeh Capital Partners.
Dollar’s Mixed Week: Foreign Exchange Overview
In the foreign exchange markets, the dollar strengthened today. But for the week, the U.S. currency is on track for its worst weekly performance in a month.
The dollar index, which tracks the dollar’s performance against a basket of six leading global currencies, rose 0.6 percent to 102.534 points around 10 p.m. EDT. The euro was down 0.8 percent against the dollar at the same time to $1.0902. The dollar was up 0.2 percent against the yen, hovering around JPY142.11. The euro lost 0.7 percent against the yen to JPY154.94.
Source: čtk
